


Follow the Red Tether

by Inferniolus



Series: Red Tether [1]
Category: Glitch Techs (Cartoon)
Genre: "eat the rich" energy, And also that trope where someone hates everyone except for that one specific person, Asexual Character, Bolypius - Freeform, Evil Corporations, Gay, Hinobi Corporate, Horror glitch, I don't know what tags to use for the horror bits but like yeah there's a little bittle, M/M, Maybe not hates but definitely doesn't want to get close with anyone else, Memory Loss, Other Additional Tags to Be Added, Red String of Fate, Self-Indulgent, Socially-Awkward, Trauma, just a couple of dumb gays being cute and dumb together, tech specialist, that trope where someone seems badass until you get close to them then realize they're a dork
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-09-28
Updated: 2020-11-15
Packaged: 2021-03-07 19:00:53
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 8
Words: 31,346
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26702590
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Inferniolus/pseuds/Inferniolus
Summary: Okay, so the world of Glitch Techs, right? But imagine it as a gay romance between two adults, one of those adults being a tech specialist who deals with a lot of horror glitches. And imagine those horror glitches get explored a bit, so that the whole concept of the show has a very dark and, frankly, messed up undertone that the show cannot fully explore, considering it's main demographic.Aside from Phil being seen in a romantic setting, and horror glitches being explored, there is a deeper plot at work that the specialist, Inferno, brings with him: The corruption that runs deep in Hinobi Corporate....also this whole thing started because Phil is dreamy and I wanted something self-indulgent to work on.This will be a multi-part story, with this part acting as a way for me to set the stage for things.Chapter 8 is the end for this beginning part. I'm fully prepared to ignore canon to do my own things, but I'm curious what source material I could use, so I'm debating putting up the next part until after the next season comes out or not. Leaning toward not waiting.
Relationships: Phil Altiere & Inferno, Phil Altiere & OC
Series: Red Tether [1]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/2077899
Comments: 10
Kudos: 13





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> This story is written from the perspective of having finished watching season 2 (1b). It's enjoyable for people who haven't even watched the show, but there will be spoilers, if you are in the middle of watching.

Hey look, what a surprise? It’s a pretty typical day at the Bailley Hinobi Store. There aren’t too many customers. The techs are out doing various quests, with only a few staying behind to watch the store, or work on things in the Glitch Tech offices in back. But, what’s this? A tech specialist is walking into the building. He notices the team members running the store are busy with customers, so he helps himself into the offices, having been here before. He enters the main central area of the Glitch Tech base, looking around like he’s looking for someone. Some of the young techs are surprised by this, as the last time they saw a tech specialist wasn’t exactly for the best of reasons. The up and coming techs, Miko and Five, are nearby, talking with each other about this mysterious visitor. Five looks at him, lost in thought, before turning to Miko.

“That’s a tech specialist! I wonder what he’s doing here.” Hearing this, Miko makes some surprised noises, and is immediately assuming the worst. She marches up to the specialist, giving off aggressive vibes.

“Hey, what are you doing here, tech spec dude?” She sounds vaguely accusatory. The specialist inspects the two. With a more calm voice than they expected, he answers, not really bothered by the energy Miko’s giving off.

“Hi. I’m the tech specialist, Inferno. I’m looking for Phil. I need to talk with him before I do anything else.” After saying that, his eyes wander around the building, but Miko draws his attention back to her.

“Listen here, spec boy! I’m not gonna let you permaban anyone or anything! So whatever you’re here for better not be bad!” Inferno just watches her for a moment, briefly glances at the quiet Five next to her, then back to her.

“I promise you, I’m not here for anything like that. How about we switch to introductions?” He asks, trying real hard to keep things civil. The three go through basic introductions, with Miko and Five spending a while talking about themselves as a duo. The two try to present themselves in a way that will make Inferno take them seriously, but he mostly finds them amusing. However, he lets them continue.

The whole time Phil is watching them from upstairs.

“Hey, BITT. Did you get an e-mail or anything about a specialist coming?” He asks of his companion while looking down at the person he views as an intruder in his building.

“None. I have, however, run a scan on his gauntlet. He is Tech Specialist Inferno. A high ranking specialist with an expertise toward survival-horror and JRPGs. It seems he has an extensive track record due to traveling around the world dealing with these glitches, and regularly reports back to the central offices. Would you like me to send him your way?” Phil grumbles to himself. Someone from central. It can’t be anything good, he figures.

“But what are you doing here, anyway, Inferno? You never answered that.” Five asks after introductions are finished. Inferno rubs the back of his neck while answering, kind of tired from Miko’s high energy. Though he does seem endeared toward the two.

“Like I said, I need to talk with Phil about that first. But you two can expect to see me around here more often.” After Inferno answers, Five’s eyes wander upwards.

“Well, if you’re looking for Phil, he’s up there in front of his office.” The boy says while pointing above them. As Inferno turns and looks, Phil turns around and walks into his office, really not wanting to be bothered. BITT follows him. Inferno thanks the kids and heads on upstairs

The dark-haired specialist knocks on Phil’s door before entering. The manager is trying to look busy on his computer, having some weird hope that if he ignores him he’ll go away.

“Phil! It’s me, Inferno! How have you been?” Inferno exclaims, excited to see the man, and walking towards him with open arms. Phil loudly groans and turns around, looking Inferno in the eyes.

“Let’s just cut to the point. Why are you here?” Phil’s blunt, cold words stop Inferno in his tracks. The specialist is visibly confused. He takes a moment to collect himself, before cutting to the point.

“I… I was told by central that I need to report to them through another office for an undetermined amount of time. I chose the Bailley branch for… obvious reasons.” Inferno says with one of his hands motioning towards Phil. The ‘obvious reasons’ makes Phil look more annoyed than usual. “And I wanted to check in with you about anything you could use my help with around here, since I haven’t been told how long I’ll be in this situation.” Phil squints his eyes, very obviously annoyed.

“Listen. I don’t need some specialist running around my branch. So you can go run back to corporate and tell them whatever ‘obvious reason’ you need to look in on is under control.” It seems Phil is under the assumption that Inferno is here to spy. Given all the strange happenings, and the modder incident that happened recently as well, he expected something like this to happen, but still feels insulted regardless. Inferno raises an eyebrow, still very confused. He puts one hand on his hip and changes the subject entirely.

“Phil, do you seriously not know me? I know I’ve changed a lot in the past few years, but come on. It’s me. Inferno.” The specialist is pleading. Phil shakes his head.

“I don’t know you and I’ve never exactly been close to any of you specialists. Now if you need a tour of the grounds, BITT over here can show you around.” Phil tries to finish, and get Inferno away from him, but Inferno doesn’t believe it.

“Come on. BITT should know who I am, then.” At these words, the android makes an activated noise in response.

“Of course. You are Tech Specialist Inferno. You specialize in survival-horror games and JRPGs. You have an extensive history due to traveling around the world hunting these glitches. It is great to have someone of your expertise around.” There’s a long, awkward silence after BITT basically repeats what it had said to Phil earlier. Inferno waves his hand dismissively at himself.

“Okay, bad idea. But still, I refuse to believe that you, Phil Altiere, don’t know who I am. So stop acting like this joke of yours is a good one and—" Phil cuts Inferno off by standing up, slamming his hands onto the table.

“Listen, _pal._ I’m telling you I’ve never seen you before! So, get off my case and stay out of my—" The yelling is interrupted by a loud noise outside the door. Phil takes a small breath to calm himself down before opening it. Sure enough, Five and Miko were very obviously listening in at the door, and they fell on top of each other, causing the noise the older men heard. They jump back up, and try to smile their way out of it. Phil closes his eyes and rubs his temples, before continuing to address Inferno.

“Why don’t you go give the kids a demonstration of what some ‘great specialist’ such as yourself can do in the simulator?” Inferno looks about as annoyed as Phil does. He pinches the bridge of his nose while looking down, before looking at the young techs.

“Would that interest you two at all to see a basic combat demonstration?” He asks, very clearly not in the mood to do anything right now. But seeing the stars that grow in their eyes change his mood a bit, as they very obviously want to see a specialist in action. “Okay, well. Phil, since OBVIOUSLY I’m not known around here, you’ll have to come, too. Gotta keep this invader supervised so I don’t do anything behind your back, right?” The words are practically dripping with enough spite they could create holes in the floor. Phil glares at Inferno, livid. He realizes the man has a point. If he can’t be trusted, he shouldn’t be left alone. Phil agrees to it, even though he’d much rather throw the man out of the building and into a volcano. Five and Miko make loud Five and Miko excitement noises the whole walk to the simulator.

Once there, Inferno goes through his gauntlet, and he starts up a basic fight against a giant cyclops. He activates his tech, and he brings out a rapier and crystal from his gauntlet. They don’t look like plixels, but instead look like they’re actually from a game. From the crystal, it looks like he’s able to use magic, but it’s all just code in the crystal he’s activating. He utilizes these spells from afar, before sliding in with the rapier. He does a succession of slashes and stabs before leaping backward a great distance. He jams the crystal into the rapier’s handle and creates a burst of fiery energy, eliminating the cyclops before it could do anything.

“I couldn’t even finish the combo…” He says to himself, disappointed. Miko and Five behind him are gushing at how cool that was. They demand he explain how he got that weapon. “Well, if you spend enough time in crafting, you can make all kinds of things.” He continues by explaining to them how the magic works, and how everything else was pretty standard. Phil, off to the side, isn’t super impressed, but he seems to have calmed down enough.

After the kids have chilled out a bit, Inferno messes with his gauntlet some more, and he creates two of the same cyclops. He hesitates for a moment, before turning back to Phil.

“Hey, manager. Give me a hand with this fight.” Phil shakes his head and crosses his arms.

“No way. This is your demonstration, not mine.” They have a brief stare down. Inferno bites his lip in thought, before finally responding.

“If you help me with this, I’ll leave you alone for the rest of the day.” At Inferno’s addendum, Phil closes his eyes and breathes deeply through his nose.

“Fine. But I’m holding you to that.” He says while moving to stand next to Inferno. Phil activates his tech. With both of their tech activated, their gauntlets glow a red that hasn’t been seen before, and a red tether of light forms between the two. Phil holds his gauntlet up to his face and is in shock. “What is this?” He looks to Inferno, noticing the same red gauntlet and tether. “What did you do?” Inferno shrugs his shoulders and shakes his head.

“I didn’t do anything.” He flips through his gauntlet, not surprised about what’s happened, and after some quick beeps, he continues. “Though right now I did just send you an axe I finished recently. I think you’ll find it to your liking.” He says creating a large greatsword, and holding it over his shoulder, looking at the cyclops. Phil checks his gauntlet, and summons the greataxe Inferno sent him. It feels powerful, and something else about it feels… right. He can’t describe that feeling, but he does like it. The two use their powerful weapons to cleave their way through the enemies. They move with strangely perfect synchrony, seeming to predict one another’s movements. After weakening the enemies sufficiently, without even saying a word, they both slide to the sides of the enemies and slam them into each other, effectively defeating them. The simulation fades and the two men revert to their normal attires, the red tether disappearing as the gauntlets return to wristbands. Inferno is looking at Phil with a purposeful expression. Phil looks at his wristband, and then back to Inferno.

“Hey… what was that?” He manages gets out. Inferno looks down, and he has a bittersweet expression. However, before he can answer, in comes Miko.

“That was super totally awesome is what it was!” Five joins in on her.

“No, that was better than awesome. It was… it was…” The young boy is grasping for the right words. The two kids keep gawking and fanning out over that demonstration in front of Inferno. His attention has been drawn to them and he tries to respond to them however he can in order to calm them down, since he isn’t super sure how to deal with this. He looks at the door, as Phil walks out with BITT in tow. He wishes he could say something, but he’s too caught up with the kids.

As Phil walks away, he asks BITT for any info on what that red spectacle was they just had.

“There are no files about a gauntlet turning red and tethering to another gauntlet.” At the androids words, Phil gives a dejected sigh and keeps walking away.

Miko and Five take Inferno to a sitting spot in the central area of the Glitch Tech offices. They’re still gawking about that demonstration, focusing on Inferno, and trying to learn more about him. He figures it’s only fair, so he mentions the games he specializes in.

“And you might have figured out by now, but there is a rating system on missions. Because you two are so young, you’re not allowed to go after certain kinds of missions. Kind of like the rating systems on games.” Miko leans back into her chair and groans.

“Ugh, that’s super lame.” She exclaims. Five holds his chin.

“It does make sense, though. And it’s probably for the best.” Miko glares at him.

“This betrayal! We took on a scary game, Five! We should be able to do whatever!” Five thinks for a moment, and then raises an eyebrow.

“You mean when we went after Count Nogrog in Castlestein?” Miko excitedly points to him, bouncing in her seat.

“Yeah! We rocked that glitch! And that was basically horror.” She looks over at Inferno who is trying real hard to not laugh. “What?” He takes a deep breath to center himself.

“I appreciate you think that’s horror. But you have no idea what a true horror glitch would be like, and that’s for the best.” Miko doesn’t believe him and fights the point she should be able to do whatever. “Okay, well… look.” Inferno is fiddling with his gauntlet. “So all the glitches you deal with don’t look like they belong in this world, right?” They both nod. “Good. That’s how it should be, because that’s easier to deal with. I want you to try and imagine what you would do with this glitch walking around in public.” Inferno’s gauntlet is projecting a very life-like hologram of an average looking person walking in place. “Or better yet, what would you do about seeing this in public?” The hologram changes to show an old man in a wheelchair. The old man looks like he’s a day away from death.

“Okay, but what’s the problem? Old guy in a wheelchair. What problems could he cause?” Miko asks, not convinced. Inferno takes a breath in, trying to keep himself composed while talking about this man.

“Well first of all, he looks like an actual person, so if he’s not caught while you’re going after him, the police can interfere, thinking you’re attacking a human. Also, he’s not just any old man. He’s an alchemist with unreal stamina and speed. Plus he can teleport.” Inferno can tell the two aren’t convinced. “In the game he’s from, there is no combat. You can only run away. If this old man gets close enough to grab you, he can steal your life energy directly from you through his hands. So weakening him to his core glitch state is completely different from any other glitch, since you can’t fight him directly.” The hologram fades away. “Not to mention, the times I’ve had to pursue a Mapper Glitch of that game, I’ve never been given the luxury of using my gauntlet. The glitches have been too strong, and have overpowered the power of our gauntlets.” Inferno is rubbing the back of his neck, looking very uncomfortable talking about this. He looks back at the duo. Five looks creeped out, and Miko finally looks like she understands.

“Yeah, I guess I didn’t think about that. I’m good with the ones I’ve gone after, for now. Not like I’d be scared to do it.” She nervously laughs to herself.

“Is that Inferno?” While the three are talking, Mitch Williams approaches them. “Oh wow, Inferno! It’s been so long!” Mitch takes Inferno’s hands and vigorously shakes them. He realizes he’s probably shaking them a bit too vigorously, and drops his hands suddenly. “Uhh sorry.” Mitch is looking really uncomfortable. “It’s just that I haven’t seen you in a few years, and I’ve wanted to talk with you again, and…” Mitch trails off as he realizes how he’s acting, and he sees Five and Miko are right there, too. “I have glitches to turn in!” He shouts out, leaving the conversation that no one else had a chance to participate in. The three are stunned at the interaction.

“So, uhh… you two know each other?” Five asks Inferno, still in some shock at how weird Mitch was acting.

“I guess. Around the time he was new, I had to check into this branch for a quest. I can’t really remember much else.” Almost immediately after, the screens at the top of the room blare a sound showing there’s new glitches for the techs to deal with. Nothing too major, but enough to pull Five and Miko away. They say their goodbyes and head out. With a moment of silence, Inferno thinks more about how Phil was acting.

 _I know for a fact we were very close back then. Did something happen?_ He wonders. He gets the feeling it’s time to do some sleuthing. He fiddles with his gauntlet, and summons a tiny blue bird. He gives it a hand motion that the bird understands to mean Inferno wants his gauntlet to freeze the constant recording it does of what he’s up to. This bird is a pretty advanced pet he uses, mostly for hacking. But, it’s also affectionate, as once it freezes the gauntlet, it starts nuzzling his beard.

“Aw thanks, who’s my best borb? Who is it?” The bird is chirping softly and gleefully. Inferno laughs at how cute it is. “Okay, so I need you to look into something for me.” He types Phil’s name into the gauntlet. “I need you to look up any files about him, with emphasis on that last time I had to stay here for a while. Do you remember the dates?” The bird chirps and swirls upward in confirmation. Inferno smiles at it. “Awesome. I imagine corporate has the files, so do your best and be safe, okay?” A single, firm chirp, as the bird flies back into the gauntlet and goes through the internet, on its mission.

_I sure hope that gives me some answers of why he’s like this._

After that thought, Mitch approaches Inferno once more. The specialist is surprised Mitch isn’t grabbing any of the quests that were just up for grabs.

“Hey, Inferno. Sorry about before.” Mitch says, clearly embarrassed with himself. “It’s just, I’ve wanted to see you ever since the last time, and thank you for that. And I guess finally seeing you here out of the blue knocked me off my game.” Uh oh. Inferno doesn’t know what Mitch is talking about. And he’s really hoping it’s not super obvious in his face.

“I mean… don’t worry about it. Things happen sometimes, you know? Good to see you again.” Mitch squints while looking at Inferno.

“You don’t remember what I’m talking about, do you?” After a pause, Inferno shakes his head to show he has no idea what Mitch is talking about. The young tech sighs. “When you stopped those older techs from calling me…” He looks around to make sure no one else is around. “…Bitch Williams…” With a furrowed brow, Inferno tries to think on it, and it all comes back to him. Just like Mitch said, some older techs were bullying Mitch and calling him names. Inferno was just there to report info, but saw that going on. He approached the techs and told them to stop. He also called out other bad behavior of theirs he’d noticed and asked them what they do around there anyway. They didn’t like seeing a specialist confronting them, so they walked away. Apparently, it left an impression on Mitch

“Right! I didn’t do a whole lot, but I’m glad it helped you.” Mitch smiles and asks Inferno what he’s doing here. The long-haired man explains he’s going to be around this branch more often from now on. “And yeah… Phil and I are working out how I’m going to contribute around here.” A terrible lie, but vague enough it could be true down the line.

“Well, if you’ll be around more, I guess I’ll see you later. I should get out and grab some XP. Check it, I’m at the top of the leaderboard.” Mitch points to the monitors and sure enough, he is at the top. Impressed, Inferno claps for him.

“Congrats. I’m sure you’ve earned it. Keep up the hard work, Mitch.” Mitch nervously laughs as he heads out, leaving Inferno on his own again.

Some time goes by, and Inferno can’t get his mind off of how Phil was acting. It just didn’t sit right with him. He knows he promised after the demonstration that he’d leave Phil alone, but he figures at the very least he should have an honest answer of how he can help around the place. An explanation of why he can remember Phil, but Phil can’t remember him would be ideal. So the specialist heads up to the office. He takes in a breath before knocking on Phil’s door.

“It’s open.” Phil yells out. Inferno enters the room, closing the door behind him. Phil glances over and looks less aggressive, but definitely still not glad to see the specialist.

“Listen, I’m sorry. I know I said I’d leave you alone the rest of the day, but I just…” Inferno trails off. Immediately, he wants to press further about the real issue in his mind about the two of them, but he figures it’s best to keep it professional for now. “I really think it would be best if you let me know how I could help out around here. What would be most beneficial for you? I can basically do anything.” Phil eyes Inferno, before sighing to himself.

“Okay, I’ll give it some thought. But before that, you need to tell me about what you did to our gauntlets. I can’t find anything mentioning something like that.” A genuinely confused Phil is expecting the worst. He is concerned that Inferno can enter people’s minds somehow. “The way we moved with that tether... It’s like we were one person in two bodies.” Inferno gives a weak smile. “Are you doing mind control somehow? You are from central.” Inferno’s smile goes away, and he’s looking at Phil in the eyes with a sad, tired expression.

“…You really don’t know me at all, do you?”

“Don’t answer a question with another question. What did you do to me?” Inferno is looking down. He looks very tired. Not so much physically, but it’s as if he’s got a weight on him now.

“I didn’t do anything. I’ve only had that happen to me a couple times in the past, and it just happened on its own then, too.” He starts walking to the door to leave. “But believe whatever you want. Not like I expect you to suddenly trust me.” He walks out of the room. Phil wants to say something to stop the man, but the door is closed before he can. Phil just sits in his room, wondering about their previous encounter as Inferno leaves the office for the day.

With Inferno gone, Phil has this nagging feeling in the back of his mind. He doesn’t think Inferno was lying about not having done anything, even though he still doesn’t trust him.

 _“You really don’t know me at all, do you?”_ Inferno’s words echo in his mind.

Phil draws out the axe Inferno gave him. Something about wielding it really does feel natural. It gives him this feeling in the back of his mind... Like that feeling when you’re out of the house, know with certainty you have everything you need on you, but still feel like something’s missing. Phil looks outside his window. It’s sunset now.

“…Did I know him?” Phil asks himself, wondering about his lost memories.

A while later, Inferno is alone in his motel room that he’s staying at, while he figures out how long he’ll be in Bailley. He got himself a noodle bucket on the way home, and he’s enjoying the questionably ‘fresh and healthy’ fast food pasta while he watches some show on TV. He’s not fully engaged in what’s going on, but he’s trying to use it as a distraction from his thoughts.

 _Maybe coming to Bailley was a mistake._ He wonders to himself. He dwells a bit more on the choice he made, but before he can go too deep into it, his tiny bird comes back to him, loudly and happily chirping at him. It honestly scares Inferno at first, but thankfully he made the baby bird a cutie. It seems the bird found Phil’s files. Inferno gets himself into a good position for the bird to freeze the gauntlet. Afterward he looks through the files.

“…why is so much of this redacted?” He quietly questions, flipping through the documents. Phil has a lot of accomplishments, which doesn’t surprise him that much. In fact, the managers has done a lot more than a lot of specialists Inferno’s dealt with. He spends some time trying to find the files from around when Inferno swears they were close. Eventually he comes across exactly what he was looking for.

**Because Phil Altiere has learned about [long string of blacked out words, because redacted reasons, but I don't know how to black out words on here, so I guess this will have to do], we have wiped his memory of all things leading up to said event, along with any person, place, or thing that could be associated with the event.**

Inferno reads the line again. He sits back in his chair, bird sitting on his shoulder.

“That honestly explains a lot. Central wiped Phil’s memory, because he got too close to the sun.” He’s less surprised they’d do something like that and more surprised that it happened to Phil. What exactly did Phil learn? Inferno looks through the files some more, hoping to find a clue to what Phil was looking into, but sure enough, everything that could maybe relate to it has been redacted. The specialist takes a moment to stretch. After cracking his neck, he says, “Okay, baby borb. Time for us to see how to reverse a memory wipe!”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Edited by Mukuro  
> Beta: Frenemy
> 
> Currently I have 7 chapters written out and will put them up over time as I write out more.
> 
> Hope you enjoyed and are looking forward to everything else I have planned out!
> 
> I can be found on twitter, tiktok, instagram: @Inferniolus


	2. Chapter 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> After a rough first day, Inferno has learned that Phil's memories have been wiped. Unsure of the reasoning behind it, he spends the night looking into how to reverse a memory wipe.

Before Inferno knows it, he’s waking up the next morning. His body is aching, because he slept in a position no one should be in for too long. He didn’t even get much sleep, since he stayed up most of the night looking into memory wipes, hoping to find out if Phil’s wipe is reversible. All he found was an even greater distrust for the memory wipes in general. Looks like there are some cases brushed under the rug of persistent wiping causing permanent brain damage. Which is scary, to say the least, but doesn’t help with the task at hand. The tiny bird was sent back to corporate to see if it can find anything out about reversing wipes. Since it hasn’t come back, Inferno decides to get up, and try to stretch out as much of the body pains as he can, before heading back to the Bailley office.

This morning, BITT introduces Inferno to everyone like they’re all at some kind of assembly, in front of most of the employees. The android informs the techs that they’re working out specifically what Inferno will help with, but they shouldn’t hesitate to ask for his help with whatever comes to mind. Inferno attests that he’s fulling willing to give whatever advice or help he can, but he won’t do an entire task for anyone. The whole talk, Phil is silently watching from above. Inferno tries to not make direct eye-contact, but does acknowledge the man with a nod. BITT begins to wrap up the orientation, when Inferno cuts it off with something that is now on his mind, because of what he was looking at last night.

“And I feel it’s very important to state. Reckless memory wipes will not be tolerated.” Inferno looks out over the crowd, and notices that it consists of mainly young techs, so he decides to leave out the cases about brain damage, not wanting to scare them. “There is some talk that has gone around that excessive memory wipes to a person can cause permanent consequences. So if I find out any of you is being careless with that, I will personally make sure you are terminated from the company.” What a way to completely silence and tense up a room, huh? Realizing this, the specialist feels he needs to cut the tension somehow. “Uhh… anyway, that shouldn’t be too hard to avoid doing. So I hope we can get along!” He adds with a weak and clearly uncomfortable smile. There is still a tense silence in the room. A dry cough can be heard in the distance. Inferno notices Phil holding back a laugh before walking back into his office. It makes the situation a little less uncomfortable for the socially awkward specialist… but not by much. BITT formally ends the assembly, and everyone disperses.

It’s safe to say that Inferno turned everyone off from wanting to have one-on-one introductions for the day. Plus, there seems to be high plixel activity in the town, so the techs are all pretty busy anyway. He remains on standby in case his bird comes back with info, or anything pressing pops up.

But the day drags on.

And on.

And on.

On the plus side, Inferno gets a lot of crafting done, enhancing some of his weapons. On the downside, this was a lot of time for his mind to wander. A lot of wondering of how to approach Phil, now that he knows a memory wipe is responsible for their tension. A lot of concern for his tiny bird, that’s taking longer than usual to return. A lot of confusion, realizing he’s mostly had Mapper Glitch missions lately, and wondering if those are intentionally being fed through to him. He does feel like corporate is trying to get rid of him in a more permanent way than this whole ‘hey, you’re going to report through another branch until we say otherwise’ thing. Before he delves too deep down that train of thought though, he gets a call on his gauntlet. Speak of the devil, it’s one of his superiors. Inferno swipes across the screen to answer.

“Inferno here.” Immediately, he’s weirded out, because the video is disabled.

“Listen, Inferno, you’re already on thin ice.” On the gauntlet, a picture of his tiny bird having been eliminated is displayed. “But snooping through our files? You keep this up, you’re going to wind up terminated. Just stay quiet and take whatever mission we send your way. That was our agreement.” The call ends abruptly before Inferno can even think of what he can respond with.

“Something tells me that’s not just a job termination they’re talking about…” He whispers to himself while rubbing his forehead. Looks like he’s on his own on figuring out what to do about Phil’s memory. Before that, he flips through his gauntlet. Whenever he sends the bird out to somewhere risky, he makes sure to save a backup of its file. So he messes with the code a bit, changes its color to purple, and then summons this new bird up. “Hey baby!” The bird makes a soft noise while nuzzling Inferno’s face, before perching on his finger. “Not going to send you out for a while. Just wanted to see you.” He gives the bird its scritches. He also uploads the recent phone call to the bird’s memory, so it’s up to date on the important things that have happened since it was backed up.

The day continues to be busy for the techs, meaning the day continues to be slow for Inferno. To his surprise, some of the younger techs approach him, asking for advice about some of the quests they’re heading out on. The questions do help to boost his spirits after that looming threat that he got from headquarters.

By the end of the day, he’s helped out a few more techs, but mostly spent the day re-familiarizing himself with this buildings layout. While all the techs are getting ready to leave for the day, Inferno notices Phil is cleaning up some papers in the central area where BITT normally monitors everyone and takes calls from the techs.

 _I mean… his memories were wiped. But there is still a solid chance they’re in there somewhere._ Inferno thinks to himself, as he finds himself slowly approaching Phil. They didn’t exactly have a good first day together, but he’s hoping that since he’s kept his distance all day, that maybe things will be different.

“Hey, Phil. About time to head out?” Inferno casually asks, as he leans on the counter. The distant manager turns his head to look at the specialist. He has his usual bored expression on his face, as he turns back around.

“Yeah, just about.” A very short response. Clearly, he’s still not very trusting, but at least it wasn’t as aggressive as things were yesterday. Inferno bites his inner cheek in thought at how to continue this conversation, creating enough awkward silence to smother someone. During that time, a couple more of the young techs leave for the day. Inferno waves them off, trying to recover some respect points after his display this morning. After the door closes, and he’s alone with Phil again, Inferno tries to reach out once more.

“Hey, so, I was wondering… Before you headed home, would you wanna get a couple crepes at that place next door? With me?” Inferno tries to cover up how awkward that was.

 _You were the one who asked me out first, before. Was it this nerve-wracking for you?_ Phil turns his head around again and gives Inferno a quick up-down examination. The gesture has a ‘what do you think you’re trying to pull?’ vibe.

“Why would I want to do that?” An expected, skeptical response. Makes sense considering… well, everything that’s gone on between them, and of course, Phil’s general demeanor. Inferno just lifts up his shoulders into a sheepish shrug, while responding.

“Because if I’m paying, that means free crepes for you?” There’s a silence while they both stare at each other. Phil is obviously trying to size up Inferno. However, Inferno is just trying to keep himself centered and not looking like he’s lost his mind. Also, he’s really hoping his cheeks are staying the same color. The whirring fans of the nearby central computers are the only reason there isn’t a deafening silence right now. Eventually, Phil smirks as he turns his head back to his task.

“Sounds good to me. I should only be a couple more minutes. Wanna wait for me here or there?” There aren’t actually fireworks going off in the building, right? Of course not, that’s just what Inferno is feeling. What is this other feeling he has, though? Is it hope that the memories aren’t completely lost? Is it the longing after all these years they’ve been apart? Wait, no, it’s a full bladder. He was so tense this last chunk of the day, he didn’t realize he hasn’t relieved himself for a hot minute.

“How about… I just head to the bathroom first, then we walk over together. Sound good?” Inferno asks, the pressure on his pelvis increasing at an alarming rate, now that his attention has been brought to it.

“Fine, fine…” Phil says. As Inferno begins to walk to the bathroom, he tries real hard to look like he’s not in as much pain as he’s in.

With his bladder emptied, Inferno, after washing his hands, decides to take a small moment to wash his face and compose himself.

“…life giving water…” He not so quietly says to himself while splashing water on to his face. And wouldn’t you know it? At that exact moment, Phil walks into the bathroom. He very obviously heard Inferno’s words, as while he heads to the sink to wash his hands, he gives Inferno a strange expression. There’s a silence as they’re both practicing basic hygiene that really isn’t hard to follow.

“Life giving water…? Isn’t that what that main character said in Haunted Premises when she healed herself?” Phil asks in reference to the quote. As soon as the words “Haunted Premises” exits his lips, Inferno tenses up really hard. He tries to force his shoulders to relax, as he begins drying off his face.

“Yeah… she does. I’ve had to work on that game one too many times.” After saying that, Inferno begins to space out, completely stopping what he was doing to stare forward into the void as his memories of being in that game come back. While beginning to dry his hands, Phil glances over and sees the blank expression on Inferno’s face. He hesitates for a moment, but seeing the dark-haired man next to him suddenly look so lifeless is concerning. He puts a hand on the specialists shoulder, bringing him back to reality.

“You had to deal with a Mapper Glitch in that game, didn’t you?” Phil asks with some concern in his voice, fully aware of what that main character endures over the course of the game. She’s unable to fight, constantly has to run and hide in order to stay alive, and she is forced to endure various physical… violations. If that game had a Mapper Glitch, it means Inferno had to endure all of that himself, and he had to stay on the game’s script. Not to mention, Mapper Glitches require pursuing the ‘true ending’ in games with multiple endings, which is always more involved and time-consuming. Inferno looks back to Phil, and he sees that the man understands what that means, which does help him come back to reality. He hasn’t ever talked with anyone about it. No one really gets it anyway, since it’s an older game, so it’s nice to know that this person before him understands what he’s been through.

“I have.” Inferno finally answers, slowly nodding his head while looking back at the mirror. “A few times.” He resumes drying off his face. Phil just looks at the specialist. He has this feeling of guilt inside of himself he can’t really explain. As he dries off his hands, he’s lost in thought about Inferno. Maybe he was wrong about him. However, he waves the melancholic feeling away before it goes too far. The two finish up, lock the Hinobi store, and head over to the crepe place.

Phil says he’ll pay for his own, but Inferno reminds him that their deal was made under the condition that he would pay for both of their crepes, and finally, Phil reluctantly agrees. He gets a chocolate and marshmallow crepe, and Inferno gets a strawberry and whipped cream crepe. They enjoy the pastries over small talk about the young employees they work with. They are two of the few there who are over 30 years old, so it’s interesting seeing people make the same mistakes they did when they were younger. Then the talks turn to triumphs over past glitches. Phil brings up his glitch pet, Kodama. Inferno shows some of the crafts he’s been working on. The sound of hissing crepes consistently being made in the background of their various conversations.

After they’re done eating, they walk to their respective company vans. Inferno walks Phil to his, wondering what else to say. Should he bring up Phil’s wiped memory now? Would that ruin everything? Is there even a good way or timing to bring that kind of thing up? Probably not.

“Well…” Phil starts, breaking Inferno out of his thoughts. “That wasn’t as bad as I thought it would be. Thanks.” Phil says, actually smiling to Inferno for once. His cheeks look a little red, too, though a good crepe is known to make anyone blush. Inferno nervously sweeps his hair back.

“Yeah, I had a good time, too.” He replies with a smile. Phil steps into his driver’s seat and starts up his van. Before Inferno can come up with anything else to say, Phil states.

“Next time, though. I’m paying.” He waves as he begins to drive off. “See you tomorrow.” Phil has left.

 _Next time?_ Inferno thinks to himself. _Phil wants to do this again?_ The thought fills Inferno’s heart with joy. This sure does completely counteract that threat against his life earlier. He walks back to his van and sits down in it, overjoyed that the man he thought was lost wants to be with him again. On the ride back to his room, he wonders what they could do together, but figures that’s something they can figure out at work tomorrow. For now, though, he can rest easy knowing that even with his memory wiped, there’s still a part of Phil that doesn’t hate him.

Back at the motel, Inferno wonders if there’s any way he could activate Phil’s wiped memories. Maybe just go through the motions of things they did together before? But they’re different than they were then, so maybe that wouldn’t work. He dwells on these thoughts more than he’d like, but ultimately figures he should just head to bed for the night, especially considering how badly he slept the previous night.

The next morning, Inferno wakes up feeling refreshed, and he’s still pretty happy about the events of last night. It wasn’t much, but it was just enough to tide him over. He gets cleaned up, ready, and heads to the offices.

Once at the offices, he notices right away that Phil is busy lecturing some of the techs. Inferno makes himself look busy by flipping through his gauntlet, while leaning against a nearby wall. He wants to get a “good morning” in to Phil, so he can start the day off right.

A short time passes, and the techs have headed out to do their morning patrols. Phil is on his own, organizing some folders. Inferno takes this opportunity to head toward him, but before he can say anything, his gauntlet starts to go off. Hoping it’s not a threat against his life, again, he flips through it, and notices another Mapper Glitch has shown up in the area. This time, however, it’s from the psychological horror game, Order of Dahlia.

“Morning, Inferno.” Phil says approaching the specialist, cup of coffee in hand. He notices that Inferno is looking at his gauntlet. “Oh, you actually got something to do today?” Inferno tells the ginger man it’s a Mapper Glitch for Order of Dahlia. Phil’s expression turns serious. “You really get some rough assignments, being a horror specialist, don’t you?” Inferno shakes his head, already tired, putting his gauntlet down.

“Yeah, and they keep sending me only Mapper Glitches lately. But at least this way I don’t have to deal with how bad the combat system is.” Inferno responds, trying to laugh it off.

“What? Order of Dahlia?” A loud Miko asks as she enters the room, surprisingly energetic for how early it is. “Sounds cute. I want in!” Both Inferno and Phil look at each other, Phil’s arms crossed and Inferno with one hand on his hip, and then they look back to her. Phil speaks first.

“You don’t want in. Some messed up things happen in there. Besides, I have plenty for you to do.” Miko groans to herself before heading to the back. She’s clearly disappointed that she can’t join Inferno on his quest.

“Thanks.” Inferno says to Phil with a small smile. He’s still not entirely sure how to deal with Miko and her high energy. Phil smiles back to him. “So I guess I’ll let you know when I’m out of there. I played it a lot when I was about her age, so it shouldn’t take too long.”

“No way. You grew up with it, too?” Phil asks. Inferno already knows Phil played it, but he decides to play along with the memory wipe.

“Yeah. Something is telling me we played a lot of similar games growing up.” They both laugh to themselves. Phil takes a sip of his coffee.

“Yeah, I shouldn’t be too surprised. Guess I’m just so used to being around people way younger than me.” He looks down, still trying to wake up, then he smiles back to Inferno. “Anyway, yeah. I look forward to seeing you when you’re done.” Phil waves, and then walks away. This is a complete 180 from how things were between them just two days ago. It’s the good morning Inferno was hoping for. With this positive energy motivating him, he heads out, and off to his mission.

Driving up to the house inhabiting his target, Inferno can feel the how powerful the plixel energy is from inside his van. He finishes up his preparations and heads inside. He’s immediately in the school bus from the beginning of the game, and suddenly his tech is forcefully deactivated. He sighs to himself, as he sits down in the moving bus. Something is telling him that this glitch is going to be a rough ride.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Editor: Mukuro  
> Beta: Frenemy
> 
> Any guesses on what games Haunted Premises and Order of Dahlia are based on?
> 
> I can be found on twitter, tiktok, instagram: @Inferniolus


	3. Chapter 3

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> After Inferno has his life threatened by his superiors, he decides to ask Phil out on a crepe date. Surprisingly, the manager agrees and afterward says they will have to meet like that again.  
> Feeling good about this shift in their dynamic, Inferno heads out on a Mapper Glitch mission for the psychological horror game, Order of Dahlia.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> CW: suicide mention

The whole experience of Order of Dahlia is incredibly symbolic for the main character, as she regains repressed memories, even during the beginning segment on the bus. However, Inferno just wants this bumpy ride to hurry along. He gets the journal key item from a creepy little kid who appears out of nowhere. The bus stops, and Inferno has to follow the child, who has run out of the bus and into the darkness. It’s a very dark, wooded area, but the specialist knows where he’s headed.

After a bit of walking, he makes it to the creepy abandoned orphanage where the majority of the game takes place. Looking through the gate, he sees children wearing unsettling masks, and they’re beating something in a bag. Inferno just watches for a moment, before he clicks his tongue with discomfort.

“Okay, just gonna head this way, then.” He says to himself while looking for an entrance that isn’t this locked gate. After some exploration, he’s inside the building, and he makes his way to the attic. The child from the bus is standing on top of a mound of trash, the room lit by very intentionally placed candles. While the kid is saying their scripted lines, Inferno pulls out the journal he was handed to try and move things along. It details an intro of the children’s club that’s basically just an excuse for them to bully each other, and it’s got some symbolism about class systems that are in place. You know, things that aren’t very obviously evil or anything... The game plays out some more, with Inferno needing to follow the sounds of a distressed dog barking outside. One thing leads to another, and the children have nailed Inferno into a coffin, and are beginning their hazing of him. He’s aware of the things the main character deals with, so he figured this would happen, but it doesn’t make the experience any less strange.

After the ritual, Inferno finds himself waking up tied to a wooden post in the middle of some dirty laundry room. A child on the intercom is talking down to him about how he needs to do as they say, otherwise he’ll die. However, throughout the whole speech, Inferno just kind of sits there trying to remember how the events of the game play out. There’s another hazing instance later on he’s really not looking forward to, and a boss fight he knows will make him feel sad. And, oh there it goes, the child calling themself The Prince, sets a machine in motion to cut the rope off Inferno. Now the game has officially begun. A majority of the gameplay is exploration and finding items to give to the kids in the club. While exploring, Inferno comes across the young girl the journal refers to as The Scared Princess. He knows what’s going on with her, the unspeakable depravities being done to her by the man who is supposed to be her caretaker. If the specialist didn’t need to stay on script, he’d help her out of her situation, but he can’t. She turns her head away from him.

“How useless…” She says, disgusted. Useless? Inferno remembers everyone in the game calling the main character dirty, not useless, but he figures he’s just remembering things wrong and moves on. He explores the area, and he comes across the rest of the children and their ’caretaker.’ Moving on, Inferno eventually finds a bag being held by a rope from the ceiling with whimpering dog sounds coming from it. Time to get that companion for the story who trims exploration time way down. However, when he gets the bag down, it’s empty.

“Wait, what?” There’s no dog companion. Instead his tech reactivates, and his gauntlet lights up. “Oh man, please let me use whatever all of a sudden…” He goes through his gauntlet, but nearly every function is blocked off. “Of course…” The only section not blocked off is the part about his pets. He figures this is the glitch’s way of throwing him a bone. He’d love to summon his behemoth pet, but that, and a few others, are locked, so he just goes for the dog from Haunted Premises. He’s basically the same as this game’s dog, only if this game’s dog were good at fighting. The canine appears and barks excitedly at Inferno. “Hey, Louie! Ready to help me finish this mission quickly?” The dog barks in confirmation, and they begin tracking down items to give the children.

The mission continues, with things mostly staying to script. Little demon gremlins show up every now and then as regular enemy encounters. Inferno gets a metal pipe as a weapon and pretty much sticks with it the whole time, since his movements are better than the main characters. Therefore, the combat is generally way easier for him to deal with then when he played the game before. He learns about various traumas the kids in the orphanage deal with throughout the course of the quest, and they all refer to him as “useless one.”

Eventually, things get to a point where you learn about how the main character was the sole survivor in a plane crash when she was a small child. Instead, however, the journal is talking down on Inferno for medical trauma he had to deal with. It goes into a lot of detail about his time in the hospital and how he wasn’t allowed any visitors, calling him a “useless person that no one would ever want to visit anyway.” After reading that line, the quiet laughter of children can be heard, as everything fades to darkness. Inferno’s tech deactivates once more, and when he can finally see again, he’s alone in a hospital room. Louie is nowhere to be seen.

“This isn’t what happens in this game at all…” He whispers, trying to figure out what’s going on. The light in the room is fading in and out. “Hey, glitch, this is REALLY off script right now!” He tries to yell out to it. While the light has faded out, he gets stabbed in the lower back by something. He falls over and tries to look back when the lights come back on, but nothing is there. As the lights continue to fade in and out, a horrible feeling swells in Inferno’s stomach, and he begins to dry heave, pain increasing from where he was stabbed in the back. After some time passes, the pain has subsided, along with the nausea. He tries standing back up, but before he’s back on his feet, when the lights are out he’s slashed across the stomach and chest, forcing him to fall back. Inferno just lays there, staring at the ceiling as the lights continue to go in and out, slowly, pulsating almost in time with his heartbeat. A single tear drops down one of his eyes as he realizes this glitch is loosely making him relive a time he was forced to spend in the hospital, due to an emergency he had. “What a jerk…” He whispers about the glitch. Somehow it got into his mind.

 _If this is playing out that long stay, then the next thing that should happen is…_ After that thought, Inferno feels a pressure on his arms and legs. The weight is keeping him from moving. He’s stuck, unable to do anything. Expecting this, he just lays there and closes his eyes, accepting the situation. Something he basically had to do during the real events: accept the sudden bad health he had and all his new restrictions.

He’s stuck on the floor for what feels like hours, unable to move.

“What a useless boy…” A voice says from the darkness. Inferno just sighs to himself.

“Listen, glitch, I’ve already done plenty of work on my feelings of inadequacy and am basically over it. So, that’s not going to have the effect you’re expecting.” He says, bored. “This making me relive my health problems stuff is great work, though. I’m more shaken by that than anything has shaken me, probably since that all happened.” At this point, he’s just talking to the glitch to hopefully help pass the time or maybe activate the next sequence. This is worse than what actually happened, because at least he was able to move and do things during that time. It was all just super restricted. “But thankfully that problem is done and over with, now.” His health problems he was being treated for took a fair chunk of time for him to deal with. “All those tests and treatments. Eventually a miraculous recovery. No one could explain how it all started or ended.” And still no one can explain it. “So, can we just move this along to that part now, so I can see what else you have to offer?” But nothing happens. Inferno begins trying to do whatever he can to get out, but nothing he does works.

More time goes by, before there’s a slow knocking at the door. He perks his head up, confused. He doesn’t recall anything involving a door happening. He hopes for this to be the sign things are going to progress, but he’s still stuck. No matter how much he struggles, he stays pressed against the floor. Each knock makes him more discouraged that he can’t get back up, but the knocking suddenly stops. Inferno lays there trying to listen for any other noise. There’s nothing. No footsteps or breathing or anything. Then, suddenly, the door swings open. The masked children slowly walk into the room and surround Inferno. He looks around at them, wondering what they’ll do next. Some of the masks vaguely remind him of his superiors, somehow. One of the kids slowly walks up to him and places a flour sack over his head. He’s able to breathe in it just fine, but he definitely can’t see anything. That’s when the sharp pains in his torso begin. It feels like each child is stabbing him, but he can’t see any of it. Inferno is too stressed out and in pain to make out any noises, as all that he can hear is ringing in his ears. He writhes in pain on the floor and eventually slips into unconsciousness.

Sometime later, Inferno wakes up and finds himself in some basement bedroom. He recognizes it as the part where the main character has been kidnapped by some man who thinks she’s his dead child. He sighs in relief since he’s back on script. A quick assessment of his body shows nothing is out of the ordinary, other than his tech has been reactivated. Still no sign of Louie, but that’s to be expected at this point in the game. He sits down on the bed and gathers himself mentally. He’s had glitches get in his head before, but not to this extent. Then again, this is a psychological horror game, so it makes sense that it would use past traumas against him. Thankfully, at this part of the game, he needs to wait for a little girl to get him out of the room, so he takes whatever time he has to calm down.

“I came, just like I promised.” That’s Phil’s voice. Inferno stands up and looks around the room.

“Phil? You’re here?” There’s a window nearby, but on inspection there’s no one near it.

“Looks like we both got ourselves into a real big mess, huh?” Phil continues. Inferno tries to break the window with nearby objects, but nothing works, so he moves to the door. “We got punished for it. Me with my memories and you with your body.” Nothing is breaking. Why is Inferno hearing Phil’s voice here? He tries moving furniture around to see if there’s some hole in the wall or something. “But we’ve worked through the punishment, one way or another. So all we can do is learn from it or repeat our mistakes.” There’s a sound of small footsteps at the door. Inferno braces himself for whatever may happen next. “But next time we might not make it out alive.” The door slowly opens. Inferno waits to see if anyone shows up, but nothing. No Phil, no little girl, not even the kidnapper. The specialist pokes his head outside the door and sees it’s the empty hallway that it should be. Inferno let’s out the breath he didn’t realize he was holding in, and he starts rubbing his temples with both his hands.

“Okay, glitch, you’re good at what you do. I get it…” He says leaning against the wall, taking a moment to gather himself. Inferno decides it’s best to just move on with the game. No sense in sticking around to think about everything that’s just happened.

The game stays on track for a while. Inferno’s back at the orphanage. The kids do some really messed up things, but it doesn’t have the same impact, since Inferno’s companion is a pet in his gauntlet that he can monitor.

And now we’re at the last night. No weird personal things have happened ever since the Phil voice. It’s just a rainy night at the orphanage. Inferno tries to enjoy the sounds of the rain falling for as long as he can, when he hears the screams of the children coming from downstairs, signifying that the final boss is ready. He makes his way down, remembering the fight. It’s against a version of the kidnapper that one of the kids has manipulated into being a horribly unstable killer, but what Inferno finds when he’s on the bottom floor takes him off guard. Instead of the kidnapper, it’s a younger version of himself.

“What are you trying to pull?” He asks the glitch that’s taken his form. He can’t quite place how much younger this version of himself is, but he has a pretty good idea. “Okay, fine.” He says readying his steel pipe. The fight begins, and the glitch has modified some of its attacks to be less predictable than it was in the original game. At some point, Inferno gets knocked back, and his enemy is cackling at him. That’s when Louie jumps out of the gauntlet to ease the fight more. The dog serves as a solid distraction, so Inferno can whack the enemy into submission. Some time passes, and the glitch is knocked out on the floor. Inferno looks down at it, aware that this isn’t the end. He takes a deep breath before walking outside.

It’s storming pretty intensely. The child from the bus is in the middle of the walkway before the gate. They say their scripted lines, before handing Inferno the gun the kidnapper initially had. This is the true final battle now. The child disappears. The door behind Inferno opens, and his younger self is back up and ready for more, but Inferno refuses. He does what he can to avoid the attacks, but refuses to fight back. Louie can’t even distract it, anymore. Finally, as time goes on, the younger self stops attacking and places its hands before itself, ready to accept an item. Inferno knows what he has to do, but wishes he could just leave it alone and end this glitch. He can’t, though. He has to follow the script for the true ending, so he reluctantly places the gun in the hands of his past self. This enemy takes the gun and makes some strange, indiscernible noises as it points the gun at its own head. The two are making direct eye contact.

“Thank you.” The glitch says before it pulls the trigger, ending itself. Inferno isn’t sure how to react to watching a younger version of himself commit suicide. From the body, the root of the glitch shows up. He picks it up, and the area returns to being a house. He keeps looking down at the spot where his own dead body was and takes a deep breath. Quest complete.

Inferno quietly heads back to the Glitch Tech office. He’s put himself on autopilot at this point, trying to not think about what happened all too much. That glitch was a lot more than he expected. Upon entering the office, some of the younger techs excitedly ask him about his mission. He forces a smile and tells them it was a success. They press for more details, but he says he needs to report it to HQ. He heads to the terminal, uploads the glitch, and writes out his report of the events, leaving out some of the more personal details. He’s focusing on it so hard he can’t tell other techs are asking him the same questions he’s already answered on his way to the terminal. After the report is sent, he quietly makes his way to the simulator, so he can be left alone.

After some time has passed, Phil enters the room, as well.

“Hey, Inferno. Thought I’d check up on you after your mission.” He says while locking the door so none of the techs can interrupt them. “Heard you weren’t looking so good and wanted to check on you for myself.” Inferno is standing at the main terminal, back facing Phil, silent. It’s as if he can’t hear anything. As Phil walks forward, he can tell Inferno has been working on something at the computer, but he’s definitely not doing anything now. Phil stops next to Inferno and sees the specialist is looking downward in thought. He bore the same lifeless expression Phil saw yesterday when Haunted Premises was brought up. Inferno is obviously having a hard time dealing with the events of Order of Dahlia. “Hey…” Phil quietly says, putting his hand on Inferno’s back. It makes the dark-haired man come back to reality, scared. His eyes are wide, but once he sees it’s Phil that’s touched him, he calms down some.

“Oh. Hi. Sorry, I was umm…” He wipes his face and then points to the computer. “Just recreating a fight from some game. Felt like a fun way to blow off some steam.” Inferno is trying to not look bothered, but isn’t doing too great a job of it. His breathing is off and he’s having a hard time looking Phil in the eyes.

“Would it help to talk about it?” The manager asks. Inferno tries to act like he’s fine, but Phil just gives him that look that tells him he’s lying. Inferno sighs and gives a weak laugh.

“Yeah, you’re right. Well…” And he begins recounting the events of the mission. How everything went to script until the medical section. They both end up sitting on the floor, less than five feet apart ‘cause they’re very gay. Inferno details what happened to him there, and as he goes on, Phil’s eyes grow wider in surprise and fear. The hurt specialist decides to skip the part about hearing Phil’s voice in the game, since he figures this would be a weird way to bring up the memory wipe. Then, finally, he talks about the final battle, where he had to watch his younger self commit suicide. After that’s all said, Inferno has to take a moment to center himself. Phil is silently trying to absorb it all, thinking how that’s a lot for someone to deal with. He looks over at Inferno, who still has a tired, dead-eyed expression.

“Hey, so… if you don’t mind me asking, what was your health problem?” Phil asks, changing the topic.

“Kidney failure.” Inferno says bluntly. “They just randomly shut down, so I had to go to the emergency room, get treatment and medicine, and alter my life entirely for a time. But I did what I was told, one thing led to another, and I had an unexpected recovery. Thankfully it didn’t last as long as everyone expected.” That’s easier for Inferno to say than the mission recounting. Inferno, still looking down, continues with an annoyed expression. “I honestly wouldn’t be surprised if corporate did that to me somehow. We don’t exactly see eye to eye.” That comment takes Phil by surprise. A specialist who doesn’t like corporate? Inferno notices Phil’s expression and realizes what he just said. “Oh, sorry. I probably shouldn’t speak ill of our great overlords.” Phil just shrugs his shoulders.

“Eh, no need to apologize. I honestly wouldn’t be surprised if you were right. I don’t trust those fools, either.” They both smile to each other. Inferno takes a breath, feeling a bit less heavy than he did a bit ago. “And one more thing…” Phil starts while Inferno stretches out his neck and back. The manager puts a hand on Inferno’s shoulder. “I’m glad you’re all better now. Otherwise we probably wouldn’t be together like this.” Inferno feels that he’s blushing, and he can’t help but smile.

“Thanks… I’m glad, too. On both accounts.” They just look into each other’s eyes for a bit and then share a small laugh at one another. Phil gives Inferno’s shoulder a squeeze before putting his arm back down. Seeing Inferno seems to be in better spirits, he decides he should head back to work. They both stand up and brush off the dust they picked up from sitting on the floor.

“I still have some things to finish, but it shouldn’t take me too long. You think you’ll still be here when I’m done?” Inferno nods his head to Phil’s question.

“Yeah. I still have a ways to go in this recreation.” He says, turning back to look at the monitors. They say their goodbyes and Phil starts to head out. Before he’s out the door, though. “Hey, Phil?” Inferno’s question stops Phil, who looks back with a curious expression. “…thank you. For listening to me. I feel a lot better now.” They smile to each other, and then Phil heads out. An overall bad day made better thanks to basic communication. Inferno turns back to the monitors, and decides he wants to finish this simulation before Phil comes back.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Edited by Mukuro
> 
> Yeah, so I basically ripped out the plot of the game I based Order of Dahlia on, so any guesses as to what it is?
> 
> I can be found on twitter, tiktok, instagram: @Inferniolus


	4. Chapter 4

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> After a traumatizing mission in Order of Dahlia, Phil comforts a tired Inferno and gets the specialist back in good spirits.  
> Inferno is working on creating a simulation while Phil heads back to work, saying he'll be back once he's done.

“Okay, Inferno, it’s been a couple hours. How are things coming along?” Phil asks, entering the simulator. He turns around to lock the door, so the two won’t be interrupted by anyone. “I brought some of the leftover donuts. Figured you could use the sugar.” He informs, while putting in the lock code. After the door is locked, the simulation Inferno was working on changes the room. From Phil’s perspective, the door disappears, and he’s standing on the edge of a platform, before a seemingly bottomless drop. The manager turns around, and before him is a gigantic, terrifying-looking dragon, with Inferno standing in front of it, facing Phil, with his arms up, showing off the simulation he’s made.

“Pretty neat, right?” The specialist looks pretty excited, but he also looks like he’s waiting for Phil’s reaction. And guess what that reaction is? Dropping the box of donuts onto the floor and staring at the dragon, amazed and scared. Inferno approaches the other man and picks up the box that was dropped. He opens it to see two donuts are left. “Oh, perfect. One for each of us. Thanks.” Noticing they’re both the same flavor, he grabs one, and then holds the open box before Phil, who takes the other one with slight trepidation. Noticing Phil is still in some shock about the giant dragon, Inferno figures he should do the talking. “Just thought a fun way to blow off steam after that nightmare of a mission would be to make this simulation. It’s a fight from…” Before Inferno finishes the sentence, Phil barely says.

“It’s from The 14th from Last Fantasy…” The manager takes a bite from his donut after speaking, and he comes back to his senses some. Phil looks around the arena as the two slowly enjoy the snacks he brought. “This is… really detailed. You did this just today?” Inferno, finishing chewing his bite of donut, shakes his head. He swallows before answering.

“I finished the first phase of the fight a couple weeks ago. But most of the second phase and some fixes were made today. Was a lot easier here since this computer had all the game’s data in it.” Phil’s eyes wander back to the dragon, who is stationary off the opposite edge of the platform looking awful menacing. “I figure before we leave for the day, we could do this fight together. If you’re up to it, I mean.” Inferno says before finishing his food. Phil stops while he’s taking the last bite of his donut, looks over at Inferno, back to the dragon, and then swallows.

“You want the two of us to go up against that?” At Phil’s question, Inferno nods his head. Phil just looks at the dragon, still dumbfounded, before quickly activating his gear, and breaking out the axe Inferno made for him. “Sounds great! Let’s blow off some steam!” It seems that Phil might not have had the best day, either. Or maybe that’s every day? Either way, the sudden shift in the man’s energy makes Inferno laugh, which in turn makes Phil laugh.

“Well, now I can’t let an enthusiastic Phil go to waste.” Inferno messes with his gauntlet and creates a sword and shield. “I think you’ll see why this shield will come in handy.” Inferno states while activating his gear and turning to face the dragon. The gauntlets glow red and the tether forms. Phil’s excitement stops for a moment at the sight of the tether.

“Okay, but first…” Inferno’s attention shifts back to Phil. “…Do you seriously not know what this red tether stuff is all about?” The specialist sighs in response.

“I don’t. I promise you, I don’t know.” Inferno answers. “It happened to me only a couple times before, and even then we had no idea what it was.”

 _And you wouldn’t believe me right now if I told you that the person it happened with was you._ Inferno thinks to himself.

“Okay.” Phil dejectedly responds. “It’s not that I don’t believe you. It’s just it keeps sticking out in my head.” Inferno looks at Phil and notices the man has a confused expression. “Like it’s tugging at something I lost…” Phil quietly says. Inferno figures that maybe the tether is the key to getting Phil’s memories back. They both are silent for a moment, while they think on what Phil just said. The axe wielder finally shakes the thoughts away. “I’ll think about that later, though. For now, we’ve got a dragon to beat!” His excitement has returned. It brings a smile to Inferno, who agrees they can try to figure it out later.

“Right! Let’s get this done!” Inferno excitedly affirms. The battle begins with the dragon shooting lasers from some of the spikes on its wings. Both techs dodge with ease, and just as it happened the last time the two fought together, they’re perfectly in sync. All of their actions perfectly complement one another. They know exactly which attacks to stay close to one another for, and which attacks to be apart from each other. The elemental based attacks from the dragon cause unavoidable harm to them, but from Inferno’s sword, he’s able to channel some slight restorative abilities. The fight goes on, with the two truly holding their own very well against this dragon. It’s a challenge, to be sure, but they persevere.

Eventually, enough damage has been done that the dragon prepares its ultimate attack. Inferno runs in front of Phil and slams the bottom of his shield against the floor, as he kneels and stabs his sword into the ground between them to brace himself.

“Just stay behind me!” Inferno orders. Phil watches as a brilliant light glows from the front of the shield, creating a larger shield surrounding the both of them. Phil is transfixed by Inferno’s defensive ability. The gesture behind Inferno literally standing between Phil and a dragon’s attack, and also that his crafting of weapons is this extensive, both of which are certainly impressive. The axe wielders eyes move to Inferno’s hand that is holding the shield, which happens to be the hand with the gauntlet on it. Lost in the moment, Phil holds up his own gauntlet and sees the tether, observing how small it is when they’re this close. “Hold onto something!” Inferno’s shout snaps Phil out of his trance, forcing him to kneel down, and also hold onto Inferno’s blade in the floor, grounding them both. At that moment, the dragon blasts them with a powerful surge of energy. The platform they’re on begins to crack away. Before the platform is completely destroyed, the dragon stops the attack to fly underneath the platform and shatter it with a crash. Inferno and Phil both hold onto the dragon as it flies them upward and into the second phase.

After some time passes, the dragon flings the two off of it’s body and into some celestial looking arena. The area has changed completely. Unfortunately, the two aren’t given a chance to enjoy the scenery, as the dragon immediately flies around, and tries to sweep a majority of the new arena with its entire body and wingspan. Inferno and Phil barely make it to the side to avoid the attack, before the fight resumes similarly to how it was before. Very invigorating and powerful music from the game begins to play.

“You… really thought of everything with this fight!” Phil praises, between breaths. Inferno, also panting, smiles back to the man.

“I’m an all or nothing kind of guy, Phil.” He wipes sweat off his brow. “Now, are you ready to end this thing?” Inferno’s words light something in Phil. And they’re both so caught up in everything going on that neither of them notice the tether is glowing a bit brighter. They resume the fight. Their attacks are stronger, movements more fluid, and their general energy is more powerful. The same elemental attacks as before still hurt them, but they’ve adjusted, and counter however they can.

As some times goes on, the dragon tries to slam its tail against the two. They both smirk and stand their ground. As the tail strikes down on them, they both block the dragon’s tail in return.

“Inferno!” Phil yells out, greataxe holding back the tail. His partner looks back to him, shield also holding up the tail. Without saying anything more, they nod to one another with a plan in place. They jump away, letting the tail drop on the platform. Inferno leaps up toward Phil, placing his shield underneath himself. Phil, expecting this movement, swings his axe upward against Inferno’s shield, projecting the specialist high into the air. The sword wielder, at the peak of height, regains control of himself and brings the sword down to strike on the tail, with exact timing with Phil also swinging his axe down on the tail. With this combined power, the two cut off the tail, severely weakening the dragon. However, they’re not done yet. Inferno throws his shield on the ground in front of Phil, who stands on it. Using some magic from his sword, Inferno raises the weapon, creating a giant, magical sword underneath Phil, bringing the manager up to the dragon’s face. Phil has the finishing blow, landing a swing through the dragon’s skull. The battle is over and the simulation fades out, leaving the two standing next to each other, tech deactivated, breathing heavily.

The duo, trying to catch their breath, move to the nearby wall to sit with one another.

“That was the most fun I’ve had in a while.” An exhausted, but relieved, Phil comments. “Thanks for that.” He leans his head against the wall and just focuses on his breathing. Inferno glances over at the man, watching as Phil smiles, despite the heavy breathing. They’re both tired, but they both also seem to feel incredibly satisfied.

“Honestly, I’d say that balanced out that horrible mission. ‘Cause wow.” He lets himself breathe before continuing. “Mood restored.” He lets out. Phil just chuckles and turns his head to look over, still smiling.

“You know what? Same for me.” They take a moment to sit while they let their bodies rest. After they’ve bought caught their breath some more, Phil proposes an idea. “How about we talk some more over pizza? Plus, we gotta lock up the store.” Inferno stops to check the time.

“Wow.” He laughs out loud. “Didn’t realize it was this late, already.” Phil stands up, and offers a hand to help Inferno up. The specialist looks at the hand, then back to Phil. “Pizza sounds great.” He finally answers while taking the man’s hand.

After making sure everyone else has left the building, they lock up, and head to the nearby pizza place.

“Okay, my turn to pay.” Phil says as they enter the building, pulling out his wallet. They each get a pizza of their own. Phil goes for a simple pepperoni, but Inferno gets this signature one he saw on the menu with lots of veggies and bits of bacon on it. After swapping some slices with each other, Phil, laughing excitedly to himself, says, “I used to play 14th from Last Fantasy a lot, so that was honestly a fun way to see it again.” Inferno nods, before swallowing his food and responding.

“Yeah, me too. I’ve actually wanted to make simulations of a few other fights from it. I just haven’t had the time.”

“Well, how about this…” Phil starts, while picking up another slice. “Until we figure out a specific way for you to help out around the place, you work on those.” The specialist is pretty intrigued by this idea. “But on one condition.” Phil states firmly. “I get to be invited.” He finishes playfully, before taking a bite of the slice. Inferno agrees to that deal and they talk a bit more about things they enjoyed from that game. They come to the conclusion they’d probably have balanced each other out pretty well, considering the things they each liked to do most in the game.

After a bit more talk, Phil quiets down and eats with a perplexed expression.

“Hey, everything alright?” Inferno asks the man. The manager perks his head back up.

“Yeah, it’s just that I can’t get that tether out of my head.” Phil begins. “I’ve never had that happen before. You say you don’t know what it’s about, but it has happened to you before.” The cogs are clearly turning in his mind. “So, I can’t help but feel it’s got to do with you, somehow. But I couldn’t even begin to imagine anything beyond that.” He’s looking pretty concerned while he talks. “And honestly, I can’t understand why it bothers me so much.” Inferno feels weird talking about it, but he wonders what it’s about, too.

“Yeah. I could never figure it out.” Inferno’s words don’t add a whole lot to the conversation, as he watches Phil still looking down in thought.

“Well…” Phil begins. “You had this happen to you before. Tell me about this other person it happened with. Maybe there’s something similar to me and whoever they are.” Inferno looks dumbfounded.

 _Yeah, sure, let me just tell you that it was a version of yourself you can’t remember anymore, because corporate wiped your memories for getting too close to something they didn’t want uncovered. I’m sure that’ll go over well._ The specialist thinks to himself. He isn’t that into lying unless it’s truly necessary, so he figures it’s best to say it in a way that keeps it vague, instead.

“I mean… I would say you two are pretty similar.” Inferno thinks of ways to compare Phil with his younger self. “He was… less mature, but also way less grumpy.” Phil looks at Inferno quizzically. “To put it as concisely as I can figure… you’re a version of him that’s lived more life, if that makes sense.”

 _Congrats, Inferno, you literally described someone growing up as if it was another person_. Inferno thinks, really annoyed with himself and the whole situation. Phil furrows his brow at Inferno, very much not impressed.

“So… I’m him, but older and grumpier.” Inferno feels real uncomfortable, because that is basically the situation. However, he knows that won’t fly.

“I mean… I guess…” Inferno fumbles, hoping he’s not too visibly flustered. “But like… there’s more to it than that. You’re also better at using discernment, clearly have great leadership and organizational skills. You’re really good at getting people on track that I’m honestly intimidated by... both the people and your ability” Phil’s expression slowly changes from grumpy and annoyed to soft, as Inferno speaks. “And I don’t think you should think that you being grumpy the way you are is a bad thing. I think it just means you have good boundaries, but you’re still getting used to implementing them.” The whole time Inferno has been speaking honestly and not fumbling, he has been looking upward in thought, almost looking as if he was counting, forgetting he’s having a conversation. “And if we really get down to it, those greys in your hair not only make you look even better than you already do, but they could show you’ve been passionate enough about things to get greys early. And passion is really cool to see.” And he stops himself from continuing, realizing what he just said. Inferno can already tell he’s blushing and is wary about seeing Phil’s reaction, but decides to look down to the ginger man across from him, anyway. Phil is stunned and also blushing, but his expression turns cocky. His haughty look is a bit undermined by the fact his cheeks are still red, though

“So, you admit that you think I look good?” The manager questions, playfully running his fingers against some of the grey bits in his otherwise red-orange hair. Inferno just stares for a moment, and decides there’s no use playing around it.

“I mean… yeah. So what?” The dark-haired specialist says, almost with some defiance in his voice. He continues, not entirely sure what he’s trying to prove. “You’re very attractive, Phil. And getting to be with you is a delight to the eyes and the soul.” He grabs a slice of pizza and looks to the side, annoyed. Phil’s very surprised at how forward Inferno is, but also the specialist’s general reaction towards his own words. The way he’s suddenly feeling makes the shorter-haired man start laughing. Inferno looks back at the laughing Phil, and he can’t help but start laughing, too. After a bit, Phil wipes a tear out of one of his eyes and catches his breath from the laughter. Inferno’s just biting into the slice he grabbed.

“Listen, Inferno.” Phil starts. “I think you’re a bit of a catch yourself, and I’m glad to be with you, too.” Now it’s Inferno’s turn to feel stunned and start blushing. He looks at Phil, who’s tender looking face shifts to a wry smile. “And I gotta admit, ‘getting to be with you is a delight to the eyes and the soul’ is pretty poetic. Did you really come up with that on the spot?” Inferno lets out a small laugh, before sitting back, embarrassed. He grabs his glass of almost empty water, holds it up towards Phil, and says.

“Told you before, Phil, I’m an all-or-nothing kind of guy.” He gulps down the rest of his water and firmly sets the glass down. It doesn’t take long after that exaggerated gesture for the both of them to start laughing again.

“I really haven’t ever met someone like you, Inferno.” Phil states, as he gradually stops laughing. Inferno smiles to him, but before he can respond similarly. “I’m honestly so used to specialists being corporate’s lap dogs. But you not only hate them, too, but you’re so much more!” This makes the specialist chuckle.

“Yeah, well… fun fact: They hate me right back.” Inferno informs, fiddling with his gauntlet. Phil tries to ask, but Inferno tells him to be quiet and still for a moment. The tiny bird comes out and, at Inferno’s request, freezes both of their gauntlets, before sitting on Inferno’s shoulder, preening his hair. “Sorry, needed to make sure they can’t listen in on this.” Inferno explains about his little bird companion and what it just did. Phil is pretty surprised about it and wishes he figured out something similar for on the go. “So, the whole reason they don’t want me reporting back to them is because I really got on their bad side.” Inferno adjusts himself in his seat and makes sure he’s not speaking too loudly. “Basically, there’s this secret circle of specialists I got invited to. A quiet workaholic like me was seen as a prime candidate. At first, I got a lot of benefits from it. Access to tech way before official release, upgrades that defy logic, my pick of assignments. But when I found out the things people in that circle did… what they tried to get me to take part in…” The long-haired man looks down at his empty glass with a pained expression. “The things I saw them do and get away with… I couldn’t accept it. Still can’t…” Phil looks worried for Inferno.

“What kinds of things did you see?” Phil asks. It takes Inferno a moment, but he figures he should answer with an example.

“One of my superiors got some younger woman pregnant, but wiped her memories, and left her to deal with it on her own. She had quit her job and moved away from everyone she knew just to be with him shortly before that.” He sighs after recounting that story and Phil is watching the man, grimacing in disgust. “After multiple stories like that were told, with pride in their voices, I tried to report them to their bosses. I was naïve and didn’t think that the corruption went deeper than them… but sure enough, it’s rotten down to the core.” Inferno leans back in his seat and takes a breath. “They threatened to wipe my memory. Some straight up want me killed. One of them tried to calm the rest down, saying I’m still too useful for them. I told the group that if anything happens to me, the world will know what they’ve done. I told them I have files hidden about everything I’ve seen and heard. Hinobi is powerful, but they’re not omnipotent, so I figured if enough people knew the truth, they could all go down.”

“And why haven’t you just released those files? Take them down yourself.” Phil asks, figuring there’s more to the story. Inferno sighs and shrugs his shoulders.

“I don’t actually have anything. Nothing solid enough to stand on its own, anyway. It was a bluff that they took. The condition of me not releasing the files was that I’d get to continue working outside of their circle. Nothing more, nothing less.” Rubbing the side of his abdomen, he continues. “And wouldn’t you know it? Not even a year later I had my kidney problems start. It’s why I figure they did something to me. Probably thought they could get rid of me a less direct way.” There’s silence between the two, as Phil tries to absorb everything Inferno has said. He always knew corporate was corrupt, but he didn’t know how deep it went. Honestly, at this point, he figures headquarters has done even worse things that the two of them couldn’t even fathom. “Anyway, so that’s why I’m reporting through Bailley instead of directly to them. I kept hacking their servers to get actual dirt on them, but they noticed, so they sent me away.” Inferno finishes, rubbing the bird still on his shoulder.

“Wow, yeah. That… does all add up.” Phil comments, still absorbing everything. “Didn’t you also say earlier how you keep getting Mapper Glitches for certain games, lately? Like… with Order of Dahlia. Things that are there to hurt you. I’m sure they’re also feeding those to you instead of spreading those out, like they’re supposed to.” Inferno takes a deep breath and nods his head. He’s had that same thought, too. Especially after how badly Order of Dahlia hit him today. The two are quiet, thinking about everything that’s been said.

“It’s been awhile, so we should probably unfreeze the gauntlets. I figure things will seem suspicious if there’s too long a gap in recordings…” Inferno’s bird moves onto his fingers, as he brings it closer to his gauntlet.

“Wait, before you set it back.” Phil interrupts. He looks hesitant for a moment, but ends up saying, “Thank you for trusting me with that. I know it couldn’t have been easy, but at least now you’re not alone.” Inferno smiles back to Phil, and you know that feeling you get behind your eyes when you’re not crying, but it feels like you could soon? Yeah, so Inferno has that. He really has sat on all that knowledge on his own for so long, now. The bird sees Inferno’s reaction, then looks back and forth between the two men. It chirps, before flying to Phil and nuzzling his cheek a bit. After that moment of adoration, it unfreezes their gauntlets and disappears.

Not entirely sure where to go from there, and with their food done, the two decide it’s time to leave the pizza place. Inferno is walking Phil back to his van, but both don’t seem ready for the night to end, yet. Not to mention, Inferno feels bad for leaving things on such a heavy note. They get to the vehicle and both look like they’re waiting for the other to say something.

“So… don’t go yet. Just… one sec.” Inferno says, walking on his own behind Phil’s car. He’s very obviously doing something, as it looks like he’s summoning multiple things from his gauntlet. Some time passes when very large versions of the tiny bird in different colors are standing close together behind Phil’s van, prompting the manager to check out what’s going on. When he gets there, he finds Inferno standing on some kind of fenced platform with ropes tied to the four large birds. “I thought we could take a more scenic route for you to point out any interesting places in the town. Come here.” Phil looks skeptical, but heads to where Inferno is standing. They both sit down, and Phil isn’t entirely sure what to expect. “Ready to head out?” The longer-haired man asks. Phil reluctantly nods. At that sign, Inferno whistles, and the large birds begin to fly, carrying the men underneath them on this platform. They go pretty high in the sky, just underneath the clouds that are rolling in for the night. Phil is very uneasy and finds he’s pressed himself up to Inferno. When the ginger man notices this, he tries to calm himself down. After a bit, he’s able to relax and enjoy the view.

“Honestly, there aren’t that many interesting places in town…” Phil ponders. The flight goes on, and he just ends up pointing out arcades and other hotspots of glitch activity. “Sorry, I can’t think of much else that’s great around here.” Inferno just smiles.

“Well, I’m already with the greatest thing in town, so I guess the bar was set pretty high.” He says, playfully jostling Phil’s shoulder. In response, Phil just smiles back, his cheeks red due to the compliment. The two silently enjoy the night flight around town together.

After flying around on the platform for a while, they decide they should probably not be out too much later, since it’s already pretty late. As the birds turn around, Inferno gets an idea.

“Hey… I have another idea. But it’s going to involve trusting me. I get it if you’re not ready to do that, just offering a secret idea.” Phil confidently nods his head.

“No, you don’t even need to ask. I do trust you, now. What’s the idea?” Pleasantly surprised by Phil’s answer, Inferno smiles.

“Okay. Now, don’t hate me, but…” Before he finishes his sentence, he hits a button on his gauntlet that makes the platform they’re on disappear. They both begin to fall. Immediately, Phil is screaming in terror. Inferno turns around, fiddling with the gauntlet some more. Two of the birds disappear, but the other two come down and catch the two. They land on the birds on their stomachs FOR ANATOMICAL SAFETY REASONS. Inferno flips over to sit on his red bird more properly. Phil tries to do the same on his blue bird, but is struggling.

“How do you sit on this thing?” He questions, constantly fidgeting and adjusting on the pet.

“Well, you kind of settle into a position eventually. But until you do, just hold my hand and I’ll keep you steady.” Inferno answers, holding his hand out toward Phil, who takes it immediately and feels safer. Along the ride, Phil does settle into a steady position, but the two continue holding hands the rest of the flight to Phil’s van, looking as if they’re flying to the moon.

Upon arrival, the birds slowly descend, before disappearing, so the two can safely land, still hand in hand. They turn to look at one another, both in way better spirits than before. Phil squeezes Inferno’s hand, before slowly letting go, as they continue to stare into each other’s eyes.

“Thanks for keeping me steady…” Phil says, cheeks red and eyes still focused on the man in front of him.

“Anytime…” Inferno responds, eyes also focused on the man in front of him.

 _This feels like the moment when people would kiss one another, right? I know I want to, but would it be weird if I just… went for it?_ Inferno thinks to himself. He keeps the eye contact going, but he’s clearly stressing himself out due to his overthinking. Phil notices this.

“You know what? Come here.” The manager says, pulling Inferno in for a very firm hug. Since Inferno is only slightly taller, they’re able to comfortably rest their heads on each other’s shoulders. The dark-haired man sighs in comfort, feeling the tension his body carried release.

“I’m so glad I decided to come back…” Inferno quietly tells the man in his arms. Phil contemplates ‘come back.’ He thinks on how adamant Inferno was at first about them knowing one another. They’ve both gotten so close so quickly and it all felt so natural. He wonders if they really did know one another, but he inevitably he decides to not risk drawing the night on longer. Plus, things are on such a positive note, he doesn’t want to risk messing with that at all.

“I’m glad you’re here, too.” Phil ends up responding with. They stay in each other’s arms for a time that doesn’t feel long enough, but they know they need to leave it. Once separated, they smile to one another, as Phil heads into his van. “Have a good night.” He says, beginning his drive home. Inferno just watches, feeling like he’s still in the clouds. After all of the bad things that have kept happening to him, it feels like things have finally turned around. He heads back to his motel room, feeling good about the choices he’s made.

During Phil’s drive home, he’s also feeling very good about how the day went. He wishes Inferno didn’t have such a traumatizing mission, but mentally commends the man for overcoming it. Once home, he makes sure all of his cats still have food and water, and he generally tends to the animals, making sure they’re all still there and doing okay. The whole while, he keeps thinking about Inferno, wondering if they really knew each other before. It would honestly explain so much, like finding the last puzzle piece, he figures.

He heads to his kitchen and activates all the hidden tech. The man looks at the monitor where his refrigerator is and watches the recording of his past-self talking about how if he’s watching this recording, he’s had his memory wiped. Phil isn’t even really listening to it, since he’s listened to it so many times. He’s had this knowledge for a while, now, and he hasn’t been able to do a whole lot about it. He thinks back to how Inferno trusted him with some very deep, dark things that the specialist couldn’t have told anyone before.

“…maybe it’s time I trust you with my secret…” Phil whispers to himself. As the recording finishes, he decides that tomorrow night he’ll have Inferno over. Tomorrow night will be when he finally opens up about his own memory wipe.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Edited by Mukuro  
> Beta: Frenemy
> 
> I can also be found on twitter, tiktok, instagram: @inferniolus


	5. Chapter 5

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Inferno and Phil, after having a satisfying battle in the simulator, go on a pizza date where the specialist opens up quite a bit about tensions between himself and Hinobi Corporate, followed by a rather dreamy night above the town.  
> Feeling a sense of trust, and hoping Inferno was right that the two did know each other, Phil decides the next day he'll open up to Inferno about his memory wipe.

The next morning, Phil realizes he’s got a lot on his plate. After Inferno comes into his office to say good morning, he lets the specialist know that he’ll be preoccupied the whole day.

“Anything I can help with?” Inferno offers. Phil, exasperated, responds with a heavy breath.

“I wish. Got some reviews to do for the techs, damage control from last night’s patrols, not to mention all the store-front folders I gotta go through.” He lists off all of his tasks one by one, clearly feeling pre-emptively stressed. Inferno figures he should leave Phil to his work and not risk causing any distractions.

“Okay, well… if you think you could use an extra set of hands, just let me know. Okay?” Phil agrees to Inferno’s offer, before diving back into his work. Inferno leaves him in his office to go back to the simulator and work on another battle simulation, like they agreed upon last night.

The morning is pretty uneventful. Just a lot of people working on things, and the techs are trying to stay out of Phil’s way. BITT does a pretty good job of answering their questions as they pop up and ends up calling over Inferno to help techs with more in-depth questions.

At lunchtime, Inferno returns to Phil’s office, with the intention of forcing Phil to not focus on all his work for a moment.

“You’re on break now. So put the pen down and rest for a moment.” The specialist demands, with food in hand. Phil does as he’s told and rubs the bridge of his nose, clearly getting tired from going through papers and making calls all morning. “Found this Hawaiian place not far from here and picked us up some poke. Wasn’t sure what you’d like in it, so I just kind of guessed.” Phil reacts with a smile as he clears some space on his desk for them to eat.

“Thank you. I’ve never had someone buy me lunch at work before…” He comments, happily receiving a box and a fork from Inferno. “Well… not from someone not trying to get something out of me or butter me up before letting me know something’s broken, anyway.” Phil adds with a small laugh.

“Who says I’m not trying to get something out of you?” Inferno questions. Phil looks back at the man with a concerned expression. Inferno winks, but then immediately starts laughing at himself and his own discomfort at the joked connotation, causing Phil to smile.

They enjoy the meal together. Phil keeps asking about how things are outside his office, but Inferno assures Phil that he and BITT have everything taken care of. The dark-haired man forcibly turns the conversation away from work, hoping to get Phil to calm down on his break. They reminisce about the previous night, both grateful to one another for how good of a time they had together. Phil, mid-bite, perks his head up, remembering what he decided when he got home that night.

“Hey, so… are you busy tonight?” He asks Inferno, who responds by informing he’s not and asking what’s up. “Well, I wanted to have you over. There’s something I need you to see and get your opinion on…” Phil looks hesitant, but forces himself to continue. “And I can probably rustle up something for dinner, if that sounds good.” Inferno gives a wry smile.

“Is that ‘something’ a thing I can just check out right here with the door locked?” It takes a moment, but Phil understands the crude undertone of that question, and playfully throws his rubber band ball at the specialist with a chuckle.

“I’m being serious here.” He says, causing Inferno to laugh in response.

“Yeah, sorry. Just thought you could use a laugh. Sure, I can come by after work.” In Inferno’s mind, he figures that it would be a good time to have the conversation with Phil about the memory wipe, unaware that it was exactly what Phil wanted to discuss, too. They finish their meal together.

“Wow, I haven’t actually had poke before. But that was pretty refreshing.” Phil comments. “Thanks, again.” He says. Inferno grabs their food boxes and throws them in the garbage.

“It’s no problem.” Inferno responds with a smile. He looks at Phil, who definitely looks less stressed, but is still carrying a lot of tension in his body. His shoulders are scrunched up pretty high. The manager reaches for his pen. “Hold it!” The specialist yells, startling Phil, and causing them to make eye contact, as the ginger man tries to figure out what that was about. Inferno makes some space in the middle of Phil’s office, clearing out some of the decor. “Get over here.”

“What?” Phil questions, confused and concerned at where this is going, but Inferno is adamant that he join him in the open space, and so he does.

“You’re still really tense. And that’s just gonna mess you up down the line. So here.” Inferno says as he starts to lead Phil through some stretches. They focus on the neck and back, but also try to stretch out his legs. After those areas have been thoroughly stretched, Inferno leads Phil through one last stretch to make sure his tension gets pulled out. “Okay, this one can also count as a trust exercise… Now, let’s get back to back.” They both get into position. Inferno says for Phil to raise his arms so Inferno can bend forward, pulling Phil to stretch out his back. “I should end up lifting you a bit, so you may also feel the stretch elsewhere.”

“Wait… you’re going to lift me?” Phil questions.

“I sure am. Now arms up!” Phil immediately puts his arms up. Inferno grabs them and begins to do the stretch. Phil’s back cracks a few times, making him gasp in relief. Inferno sets him back down, and they turn to face each other. “See, you look way less tense now.” Phil moves his body around, noticing the tension that’s been released.

“Wow, yeah. Thanks for that. Do you stretch like that often?” Phil asks, still feeling out how much lighter his body is.

“I try to. After that whole health problem thing, I kind of got scared into taking better care of myself. ‘Cause I do not want to have to stay in the hospital like that again.” Phil nods his head.

“Yeah, that’s as good a reason as any.” He replies, as they begin putting the room back together. Phil gets ready to sit back down, but Inferno stops him and pulls him in for a hug, not saying anything. Phil gladly accepts, but is a bit confused. “What’s all this about?”

“I just… really hope your stressful day goes quickly.” Phil can tell that isn’t what Inferno was going to say at first, but knows he’s not lying. He feels the taller man rubbing his back gently, while Phil plays a bit with the ends of Inferno’s hair, running his fingers through it.

“You already made my day better than I could have hoped. Thank you.” The two stay together for a bit, when suddenly the door opens.

“Hey, Phil, there’s a prob—oh… didn’t expect this.” Says the tech, Zahra. Immediately the two men pull apart and stand casually next to each other. They’re both a little flustered, but Phil tries to cut to the point.

“Zahra. Knocking.” He composes himself, and his cheeks go back to their normal color. “Now, what’s the problem?” The young tech just looks at them both, then shifts her weight to one side, smirking. Surprisingly, she doesn’t comment on what she walked in on.

“There’s a Multiplayer Glitch and we need one more person for it. BITT’s calling everyone, but they’re all busy.” After she finishes, Phil groans before turning his computer monitor back on.

“Hang on.” Inferno says, before things go any further. He turns to Zahra. “One more person, right?” She nods to his question. “Well, let’s go take care of that glitch, then.” The two Bailley residents are surprised by Inferno’s quick decision to deal with it.

“Are you serious?” Phil asks. “You don’t even know any details about the mission, and you’re just going for it without a thought?” Inferno shrugs his shoulders.

“I’ve handled Mapper Glitches of Haunted Premises and Order of Dahlia. What could a Multiplayer Glitch that teenagers are allowed to accept possibly throw at me that those glitches couldn’t?” Phil reluctantly nods his head, realizing that’s a very valid point. “So you just focus on what you’re doing and know that everything’s going to be taken care of.” Inferno starts walking out. Phil smiles, heading back to his work. “So, Zahra, can you just fill me in on the way?”

“Haven’t you two done enough ‘Philling in’?” She dryly delivers as the door closes. Which is for the best, because her words leave Phil a blushing, flustered mess alone in his office, while Inferno just laughs about it. He begins to walk with the young woman.

“So, what game is this glitch from, anyway?” Inferno asks, as they begin heading down the stairs.

“This battle royale called Boys Falling.” Zahra answers. She stops and leans against the railing, facing the older man. “Clearly you’re good at getting boys falling.” She comments with a small laugh. Inferno smiles and rolls his eyes.

“Listen, that’s funny and I like how witty you are. But could you maybe not…” Before he finishes, Zahra cuts him off, waving her hand.

“Don’t worry about it. I’m not gonna go around telling people.” They both continue walking down the stairs. “If anything, I’m glad Phil’s got someone looking out for him, now. The workaholic he is, I was beginning to think he’d only have BITT his whole life.” After the young woman’s assurance, they meet with the other two techs on the mission: Haneesh and Bergy. “Okay, we got our fourth.” Zahra informs the two, motioning toward Inferno.

“Wait… isn’t he a specialist?” Bergy questions, intimidated by the man he views as an authority figure.

“Well, that just makes things easier for us.” Haneesh comments with a bit of excitement in his voice. “Ready to follow your lead, leader.” Inferno is a bit weirded out by Haneesh’s words and asks what he means about ‘leader.’

“Usually Mitch tries to play leader for us, and we just go along with it. So, you’re the leader now.” Zahra clarifies. Inferno just furrows his brow, confused.

“But what’s the point in that?” The specialist asks the three. “It’s Boys Falling, so most of the events are luck-based anyway. Do you feel like you actually need a leader?” In response, Zahra and Haneesh say they don’t care either way, and Bergy says he does, mentioning his concern about holding them all back.

“Really, Bergy? He just said the game is mostly about luck.” Haneesh criticizes.

“Well, first of all…” Inferno starts, calling everyone’s attention to him. “What kinds of upgrades do you all have?” Zahra informs him that she’s mostly got combat support skills, Haneesh is pretty varied, and Bergy is lightly varied. Not a lot to go on. “Well… let’s just head over and we’ll play it by ear. Bergy, just try to stay close to us. Think within ten feet without invading someone’s personal space. Makes sense?” Bergy nods his head, signifying he’ll follow Inferno’s orders.

The four make their way to the junkyard where the glitch is located. There are a lot of Boys Falling boys about, flailing at each other. The techs notice the four slots, and one enters each, completing the necessary recruitment requirement, causing the games to begin. Inferno is surprised, because it’s been awhile since he’s done an assignment where his gauntlet hasn’t been inhibited. With the help of that, all four make it to the final game, after a series of events that go on way longer than a normal game would.

“Geez, Inferno, what kinds of upgrades do you have, anyway?” Bergy asks, amazed at the wide variety of abilities that the specialist has used to basically get them consistently in the top 10 each time.

“A lot. I can’t even remember what they all do. Been a minute since I’ve gotten a chance to use most of these.” The final event starts and Inferno is messing around with his gauntlet, looking through his upgrades. “Like this one. Let’s see what it does.” The long-haired specialist presses a button, and gets blasted off the platform. The three techs look over the edge and don’t see him anywhere.

“Inferno?! Did you seriously just eliminate yourself?” Haneesh yells downward. There’s no response on their shared radio, as they jump over the first hurdle of the last game.

“That’s pretty anticlimactic…” Zahra signs to herself, jumping the second hurdle.

“What are we going to do? He’s the reason we made it this far!” Bergy lets out in panic, jumping the third hurdle.

“Calm down, Bergy. We just need to stay focused and we’ll get..” Haneesh isn’t able to finish, before he gets knocked off the edge by the fourth hurdle. Always sucks when you lose focus, because you’re telling someone they need to stay focused. Zahra doesn’t plan on making that mistake, as she’s tuning everything out to make sure she keeps jumping the hurdles.

The game goes on, Bergy panicking more and more as the event goes on. It’s just the two techs against two of the boys. Just one of the techs needs to win for the mission to be a success, so it’s a split chance of victory. That is until the platforms shrink and Bergy falls off the ledge, panicked out. However, something stops his fall and brings him back to the platform to continue jumping. From the side, Inferno appears, floating in midair.

“Wait, you’re still here?!” Zahra asks, still avoiding the hurdles.

“Yeah. Slapped another button on my gauntlet before I landed in the elimination goo and it teleported me to city hall, for some reason.” Inferno answers, floating in the space outside of the area the event is taking place in. “Here.” He presses another button, causing the two boys to be projected off the stage by an invisible energy, leaving the techs as the only participants. “I’ll let you two decide the winner.” Inferno says, deactivating his flight and falling into the goo.

“What a weirdo…” Zahra says with a smirk. Bergy faces her with a confused expression, as they both continue jumping hurdles. The woman smiles to Bergy, “Looks like it’s all yours.” She then jumps into the goo herself, leaving Bergy as the winner of the royale. The mission is a success, and the least confident one there got the most XP out of it. The whole ride home, they jovially discuss the mission with one another.

Back at the Glitch Tech offices, the three young techs thank Inferno for his help, before turning in the glitch. He waves them off and notices that the mission took way longer than he thought it would. Some of the techs are getting ready to head out for the day, as evening approaches. Inferno heads up the stairs to check in on Phil. Upon entering, he sees Phil is still hard at work. The click of the door closing breaks the man out of his focus. He looks annoyed, but his features shift into a happier expression when he notices that it’s Inferno.

“Hey, welcome back. How’d the mission go?” Phil asks Inferno, as the specialist sits in the chair across from him.

“It was fine. Those kids are pretty talented for their age. Took a minute, though.” Inferno answers, letting his body rest. Phil checks the time and is surprised how late it’s gotten.

“Oh jeez…” He looks out of his window and notices the sun is setting. “I can’t believe I’ve just been sitting here this whole time.”

“Hey, you haven’t just been sitting there. You’ve been busy with very boring, but very important work.” Inferno exclaims while shifting more forward on the seat in order to look at what Phil’s working on. “You sure there’s nothing I can help with?” At the question, Phil looks back and forth between a couple small stacks of papers, thinking.

“Well…” The red-orange haired man thumbs through a stack and pulls out a folder. “Have you ever written one of these before?” He asks, pulling out a piece of paper with a sticky note on it and showing it to Inferno. The specialist gives it a read.

“Oh, for damage control? For sure.” He reads the sticky note. “Want me to fluff up what’s written here?” Inferno asks, pointing to the sticky note. Phil nods his head with visible relief.

“Please. Fluff it, but also write those last bullet points in a very apologetic way.” The manager answers, handing the whole folder to Inferno. “Here…” He says, turning his monitor and keyboard around. “After that… I think that’ll be it. I’ll just need to finish up this stack of forms.”

The two work together, with the tapping of the keyboard and scratches of Phil’s pen as the only noise in the room, both focused on their tasks at hand. After the first report is written, Phil proofreads it and gives the okay for Inferno to continue writing the rest like that. He’s very grateful for the help that Inferno is more than happy to give.

A couple of hours later, Inferno has finished writing the reports, and has placed the printed copies of them in the folder, at Phil’s request. Phil, on the other hand, still has some more forms to fill out, so Inferno just lets him quietly work on that, sitting comfortably in the chair. The specialist closes his eyes and unintentionally falls asleep.

“Hey… Inferno…” Phil beckons, gently squeezing his dark-haired companions shoulder. Inferno slowly opens his eyes and is immediately apologetic about falling asleep. “Don’t worry about it. Glad you could get some rest.”

“Is everything done?” Inferno asks of the man, who in return nods his head, very visibly tired, but with a sense of accomplishment.

“Thanks for the help. And the lunch earlier. That really helped the day go smoother.” The tired manager says with a smile. Inferno stands up and stretches out his body.

“No problem. Glad I could help.” The two leave the office, checking to make sure no one’s in the area, and locking everything up so they can go.

“Ready to come over to my place?” Phil asks, walking Inferno to his van.

“I sure am. Ready to judge everything.” Inferno says, completely not seriously. Phil just laughs.

“I wouldn’t expect anything else from you. Get in, I’ll drive us over.” Sure enough, Phil drives them both over. It’s not that it’s a long drive, but it’s a longer drive than Inferno expected. Phil’s house is in a very quiet looking area on the edge of town, which is fitting, as both men become quieter the closer they get. They are conflicted and uncomfortable about what they each want to talk about, but Inferno figures he’ll hear out Phil’s request first, then bring up memory wipe. He just isn’t sure how.

They park the van and enter the house.

“I’d introduce you to the cats, but they’ll come up to you when they’re ready to meet you.” Phil informs in a way that shows how much he does care about his pets. Inferno gives a small, approving nod while checking out the area and nearby animals.

“So, what is this thing you wanted me to see?” Inferno asks, not really wanting to take a chance to walk around. Phil first asks Inferno to put his gauntlet in the same place Phil does. Apparently this bin safely blocks out the recordings, so whenever Phil gets home, he drops his gauntlet off there. Then, with some hesitation, he leads the way to the kitchen.

“Now…” Phil starts. “I need you to promise me. Everything I’m about to show you needs to stay between us.” He says firmly, looking Inferno right in the eyes. “I haven’t talked with anyone about this before, but… something tells me you can help me answer at least some of the questions this gave me.” Inferno, feeling how serious and anxious Phil is from all this, simply nods his head, promising it will be their secret. With that, Phil activates all the hidden tech in his kitchen. “Sit here.” Phil orders, placing a chair in front of his refrigerator. Without much of a thought, Inferno does as he’s told. Phil fiddles around with some buttons and the video of his past self begins to play. Inferno sits back and slowly strokes the end of his beard at his chin, thinking while watching. He doesn’t emote much at all as the video plays, and he silently watches throughout the duration of it. Meanwhile, Phil is trying not to sweat with how anxious he is at showing this video. One of his biggest secrets is currently being revealed to a man that, for all he knows, he just met a few days ago. And for Inferno, this is all confirmation of what he had learned that first night, dumbfounded that Phil had left this video for himself.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Edited by Mukuro
> 
> I can also be found on twitter, tiktok, instagram: @inferniolus


	6. Chapter 6

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Phil is busy with paperwork the whole day. Inferno, after bringing lunch to Phil, helps some of the young techs with a mission.  
> After the mission is a success, and Phil is done with his work for the day, the two head to Phil's house.  
> Inferno watches the video Phil had left for himself revealing the memory wipe.

The video has ended, revealing Phil’s memory wipe. Inferno looks down in thought, unintentionally leaving Phil waiting for some kind of reaction. After a brief moment, the specialist stands up and looks Phil in the eye, uncertain of what to say or how to react. Feeling too anxious to wait, Phil speaks up.

“Did we really know each other before?” A reluctant uncertainty in his voice while asking the question. Inferno, feeling a swell of emotions, immediately embraces Phil, pulling him tightly toward himself. He holds the back of the man’s head with one hand.

“Yeah. We did.” Inferno’s voice is trembling, slightly, feeling overjoyed that Phil finally understands that they have met before this week. Phil presses his face into Inferno’s shoulder and holds the man in return. They take a moment together to let themselves feel their feelings out, Phil feeling relief that his trust wasn’t misplaced and that he was right to share this knowledge with Inferno. “And I’m sorry… I knew you had your memory wiped…” Inferno, still in the embrace, explains the circumstances of him learning about the situation. That first night after what should have been their reunion, but was robbed from them because of corporate. “And I couldn’t think of a way to bring it up. I should have, I just… I had no idea how.”

“Don’t be sorry. I completely understand. It’s not the kind of thing you can just bring up to someone. I just wish I could remember you...” Phil comments how, along with that video, his past self more or less left the tools to re-learn what he found out that led to the memory wipe. However, that’s all it leads to. Nothing else about himself, Inferno, anything. They both pull back, still holding one another and looking at each other with a soft expression.

“Well… I could just tell you what I remember.” Inferno offers. They head to the living room and sit on the couch, hand in hand.

Inferno recounts how the two met. They were assigned to work together on a series of missions that required a lot of planning out, seeing as the glitches all had a common thread. They both hit it off pretty well from the start, having different ideas of how to approach the job, but being able to mesh their ideas together into a water-tight plan. The night before the mission, Phil, on a whim, decided to ask Inferno if he wanted to hang out, just the two of them. Phil was a more positive person back then, almost blindly optimistic, fully believing that trying hard enough at anything would lead to success. Inferno, on the other hand, was one of those people who was a pessimist that called himself a realist. He was also naïve in his own ways, not fully understanding that not all things are black and white. Despite how different and strange they were, they drew something out of each other. Something that they both couldn’t get enough of. The mutual attraction certainly helped, too. The next day on their mission is when they both first encountered the red gauntlet and tether phenomenon.

“So yeah, that guy I said it happened with before? That was you. I haven’t had that tether or any of that happen around anyone else.” Inferno confirms, taking a break from the recounting.

“I kind of figured, once I started to believe we did know each other.” They both want to talk about the tether more, but decide it can wait.

The younger versions of themselves got along splendidly, and when they had missions together, it went perfectly. After each mission, they’d find a way to spend even more time with one another, to the point it annoyed their team leader. They weren’t exactly subtle about their feelings, either, but had awful communication skills. Both of them weren’t being the most honest with themselves about how deep their feelings went, but they kept going out of the way to be together.

Eventually the missions came to a close and they had to go their separate ways. Inferno, in particular, was going to continue traveling as part of his specialist training. He wanted to continue contacting Phil, but the younger ginger man had some fears and insecurities going on that made him reject the notion of a long-distance relationship. Inferno said that if Phil wanted, he would come back to him when his training was finished, to which Phil agreed.

Cut to a few years later, Inferno, as a specialist, goes out of the way to make sure a mission he’s on involves passing through Bailley to submit some paperwork. He’d kept tabs on Phil and heard he had become the manager of the branch, but when he got there, Phil was nowhere to be found. Apparently he was out of town for some meeting. Inferno wanted to wait, but it wasn’t allowed. After that, it was a series of missions, health problems, and attacks from corporate. Then, finally, hearing his punishment was to report to central from a branch of his choosing, Inferno thought it was finally the chance to re-connect with the man he had been with.

“And the rest should be fresh on your mind.” Inferno finishes, making sure he didn’t forget anything else major. Phil is looking into his turned off television, lost in thought.

“That sounds right…” He says, squinting his eyes in thought. “I think I almost remember… you had shorter hair and your beard was less pointy, right?” Inferno quickly turns his head in surprise to Phil, who is still focused on trying to remember. “And I feel like I messed things up when we parted ways…” By this point, Phil is hoping that speaking out his thoughts will help his returning memory become clearer. “I was part of why we didn’t stay in touch, but also… weren’t we going to seal the promise to meet again with a kiss? But I backed out of it. I think I was afraid doing that would make everything hurt more.” Phil shakes his head, returning to the present, and looks over at Inferno, who is tearing up.

“You remember …” The dark-haired man quietly says in disbelief. Phil, smiling, also begins to get teary eyed.

“I was more positive back then, but I held people at a distance. Clearly, I still do. And I like it that way.” Phil pulls Inferno in for a hug. “But you… you’re the only exception. Always have been.” Inferno openly weeps, as Phil rubs his back. “Thank you for helping me remember that.” They stay in each other’s arms for a while, letting themselves sit in the fact that Phil’s memories are not gone. They’re not perfect, but they’re good enough to satisfy the both of them. The hug gets interrupted by a few of Phil’s cats jumping up on the two. They pull away from one another, Inferno wiping his face, and Phil beginning to introduce the felines. The moment is very light-hearted, even more so as the two feel as if a chain has broken off.

After some time with the cats, Phil stands up and uses a lint roller on himself.

“Before it gets too late, I guess I should get some dinner ready.” He comments, handing the roller to Inferno and heading to the kitchen. The specialist has a cat solidly sleeping on his lap and feels stuck in place.

“Umm… is there any way I can help? What are you making, anyway?” He offers sheepishly, feeling bad about potentially needing to wake up the baby. Phil is making sure he has ingredients.

“Nah, it’s nothing complicated…” He turns his head out from behind the fridge door. “But you can expect something ‘beautiful’.” He adds with a wry smile. Inferno, confused about that comment, continues to pet the nearby animals.

About a half hour later, Phil is finishing up their meal and Inferno is sitting in a chair out of the way, watching the man with a content expression. The dark-haired man feels so incredibly ecstatic that Phil’s memories aren’t completely lost and is enjoying their moment in a domestic setting.

“Okay, dinner time.” Phil states, as he turns and notices Inferno has been watching him. He smiles, before saying, “Quit that and get over here.” Phil places a couple pots on the table and they both sit together. It seems Phil made some spaghetti for them with some sauce recipe his grandma passed onto him. They fill up their plates.

“Thanks for the food.” Inferno says. “But what did you mean earlier when you said I could expect something ‘beautiful’?” Phil chuckles to himself.

“Well, along with those other memories, I distinctly remember you saying how after our missions were done, you wanted to have ‘a beautiful spaghetti dinner, or whatever’ with me.” This recollection makes Inferno feel embarrassed, causing him to make an uncomfortable smile.

“That’s such a specific memory to have come back!”

“Yeah, but I thought it was cute. Especially coming from you, since back then, you were so dark and quiet. That glimpse into what you wanted just sticks out.” An embarrassed Inferno begins to eat, since he has no idea how to respond to that. Phil just smiles as he begins to eat their meal they wanted to have back in the day. After swallowing his first bite, Phil continues a thought, “I still can’t remember the tether from back then. How did we react the first time it happened?” Inferno thinks on it while gulping down a fork-full of the noodles.

“We were surprised, obviously. But we didn’t really have a chance to think on it, since it was in the middle of a fight. I was trying to figure it out and almost got blasted by a glitch, but you stood with me and threw a shield up.” Inferno points his fork in the air, trying to visualize the memories. “But we were alone, so when we tried to ask everyone else, they didn’t believe us. Said we were making things up to seem special. Didn’t help I was pretty new to crafting, so when we tried to show them, they thought I did something.” The specialist quietly looks down, thinking on the memory, and then looks back to Phil with a grin. “But jokes on them, because we _are_ special!” They both laugh briefly at the comment.

“We sure are.” Phil adds, thinking more on it. “But these past couple times I’ve brought it up, you danced around the question. I know you don’t know what it is, but what do you think it could be?” Inferno shrugs at the question.

“I mean, it sounds like something out of anime. For obvious reasons I didn’t say anything, but during the simulation yesterday, I got this feeling it was helping you remember me. At least that’s why I figure that even without your memories, things these past few days felt like we just picked up where we left off.”

“Honestly, that was something I wondered last night.” Phil immediately brings up how he figured he had to have known Inferno before, and how that would be like finding a missing puzzle piece. “This is the fourth day you’ve been back. I _never_ get even a sliver of how close we are to anyone in that time, but the history I’d forgotten was still around.” Inferno nods his head in thought.

“Yeah. I think that even though your memories weren’t around, the feeling of our relationship was still there, too. After our rough first day, I was honestly surprised you agreed to get crepes with me. So that would explain that.” The manager has a guilty expression, thinking back to the first day they saw each other this week.

“That’s very true. And I don’t want to undermine anything, but I also just really wanted to have a crepe. Earlier that day I was thinking about getting one.” The couple laughs at Phil’s admission. They enjoy their meal together with some more small-talk and trying to gauge where the holes in Phil’s memories are. He does have some more very specific memories, but there are still a lot of blank spaces. They figure they’ll get to them over time. After the meal, Inferno decides to wash the dishes in return for the food, but they end up doing it together.

Once the kitchen is all tidied up, the two head back to the couch to talk some more. They are surrounded by cats that simply want to lay down and/or be pet, which the two are more than happy to oblige to.

“Mind if I ask you something?” Phil poses to Inferno, who says for him to go on. “I was just wondering, what was the last straw that made corporate have you come here? It sounds like they’ve been against you for a while, so it seems weird that out of the blue you need to report through somewhere else.” At the question, Inferno immediately grits his teeth into a very awkward, tense smile. He’s looking around at Phil and the cats, wondering something, and making groans of discomfort.

“I mean… it’s kind of a lot.” Inferno starts, standing up and nervously going to the bin to pick up his gauntlet.

“If it’s a problem, just say you don’t want to talk about it.” Phil assures as Inferno is messing around with his gauntlet.

“It’s not that I don’t want to tell you… it’s more that… hang on.” Inferno’s gauntlet runs a scan of the house for something. It takes a moment, but apparently what he was scanning for isn’t found, so he puts the gauntlet back into the bin and sits back next to Phil. The specialist takes a moment to compose himself, before turning back to Phil and edging closer to him. In a hushed tone, “So you know that urban myth about Bolypius?”

“That arcade game that made people sick and no one’s ever seen?” Phil asks, also trying to keep his voice down. Inferno nods his head.

“So, while I was trying to get dirt on those people in the circle, I found out corporate has actually dumped an obscene amount of money into finding it.” Phil crooks his head to the side a bit in disbelief at Inferno’s words.

“Over a myth?”

“It doesn’t seem to be just a myth. A lot of the files I found were fragmented and redacted, but what I could piece together is that if they get their hands on Bolypius, they could learn how to control people on a global scale. At least that’s what the documents I found seemed to point to.” Phil grimaces in thought.

“…that… doesn’t surprise me they’d want to do that.” Phil looks Inferno in the eyes. “That’s a pretty small consequence you got, then, for learning about something like that. But what makes you think it’s a good idea to tell me?”

“Well…” Inferno bites his lip in thought. “The most they would do to someone I tell about it is watch them to see what they do with the knowledge, since their hope is to get information out of anyone about it, and… well…” Inferno continues by mentioning how, when he was looking into Phil’s memory wipe, he noticed they’d been keeping documents on the manager the whole time since his wipe. “It looked like they were making sure you didn’t get back on track with what you learned before. And a part of me wonders if what you learned was something about Bolypius.” The atmosphere gets heavy.

“And the only reason they didn’t wipe you, yet, is because of those ‘files’ of yours?” Phil’s question makes Inferno shrug his shoulders.

“That’s the only thing I can figure. Plus, there was the one of them who said something about how I’m useful for them, whatever that means.” Inferno crosses his arms in thought and slowly strokes the front of his beard. “But whatever their reason… if Bolypius is real and it can do what they want it to do, I can’t imagine they’d care about any incriminating evidence on them. Or anyone’s safety, to be perfectly honest.” Phil starts rubbing the back of his neck.

“That makes me think I should get my memories, then. Especially if what I learned was about Bolypius.” Phil begins. “If it’s real and they get it, those are definitely the wrong hands for something like that to fall into.” Inferno smiles at the man’s desire to fight corporate. It reminds him of how optimistic Phil used to be when they were younger, but this is the more matured and realistic version.

“You’re not going at it alone. I can help keep us under cover while looking into it.” Inferno explains the scan he ran before talking about Bolypius was checking for any Hinobi monitoring tech. Phil smiles back at Inferno. “But one thing…” Inferno starts with a serious expression on his face. “No matter what we learn, no matter how messed up it is, we need to act the same.” Phil looks quizzical at Inferno’s words. “If they get even the slightest feeling that either of us knows something that they don’t, there will be consequences.” Inferno looks down at the ground. “One of the documents I saw involved someone who had seen the cabinet 10 years before the document was dated. And they still wiped her memory of all things relating to it or that could lead her back to remembering it. They’re deadly serious about getting their hands on it.” There’s a moment of silence as the two think on everything that’s transpired and everything Inferno has brought up. Aside from working to get Phil’s memories back, they both have their own personal mission on looking into Bolypius together.

Despite the heaviness of the topic, they both still feel very good and invigorated, but they also feel tired. They notice it’s gotten very late and should probably get ready to part ways. Phil offers to drive Inferno back to his motel, but Inferno reminds Phil that his glitch pets can just fly him there, since he doesn’t want Phil to leave his home and then come back just for him. They stand at the doorway, holding hands and looking at each other.

“I’m so glad that your memories aren’t lost.” Inferno says, going in for a hug. Phil reciprocates.

“I’m glad you helped them come back.” The couple enjoys the hug for a moment. Both have some hesitation going on, wondering if they should do more than just hug. They pull back, slightly, still holding one another, and look into each other’s eyes. There’s a desire and warmth behind their expressions. They slowly move their faces towards one another, tilting their heads.

“I…” Inferno starts, mind racing. Is this really happening? Is it all happening too fast? Does it seem right to do this just after Phil started getting his memories back? All these thoughts swirling through the specialists mind cause him to stop moving forward. “…I shouldn’t forget my gauntlet…” He finishes, disappointed in himself. Phil stops, dropping his head for a moment, then bringing it back up with a smile. He holds the bin and lets Inferno take back his gauntlet. After putting it back on, they continue looking at each other. “Listen, I’m sorry. I want to, I just…” Inferno starts, but can’t quite put his feelings into words. Phil, still smiling, shakes his head.

“No need to apologize. When you’re ready to kiss, we will. Until then…” Phil pulls Inferno in for a hug, again. “This will keep me satisfied.” They relish in the embrace, Inferno feeling safe with Phil and glad there is no judgment towards his reluctance. Some time passes and they say their goodbyes as Inferno heads back to his motel room for the night, both feeling grateful for one another and feeling good about everything they got through together.

The next morning, contrast to the previous day, is a pretty slow day. Phil forces his techs to go on patrols so it can stay a slow day, while he lingers around Inferno as the specialist works on his next simulation. Their time together is interrupted by a notification on Inferno’s gauntlet. It’s another Mapper Glitch for the game Calamitous Inhabitant 5. Before he can think on the mission, he gets a call from corporate. Once again, there is no video.

“Inferno. You received your new mission, correct?” The specialist affirms in response to the question, keeping it brief. “This one will be a little different from what you’re used to.”

“Well yeah, Calamitous Inhabitant 5 is more action than horror…” Inferno cuts the person on the other line off. There is a silence before the superior continues.

“The glitch was made while the two playing it were on the highest difficulty. Make your preparations accordingly.” Inferno is noticeably annoyed. This difficulty has to be unlocked by beating the other high difficulty, which isn’t necessarily a problem on its own, but he notices there’s an important detail missing.

“This is a co-op game, though. So who’s going to join me?” The specialist asks expectantly. The whole conversation, Phil is trying to keep quiet.

“Unfortunately we do not have any spare specialists. That is the reason for the call, to inform you that you must accomplish this mission single-handedly.” Said in a tone that makes it clear that there are very obviously spare specialists that could assist. It doesn’t help that Inferno didn’t make friends with other specialists, since specializing in horror and JRPGs left him alone all the time. Inferno takes a moment to try and calm himself, but it doesn’t work as well as he’d hoped.

“So, this is the mission where you all get rid of me, huh? I’d have hoped your lie would be better than ‘no one is available to help’.” At Inferno’s accusation, the person on the other end makes a sound that can only be imagined as a laugh being stifled.

“Now wait just a minute!” Phil shouts out, grabbing Inferno’s arm to look at the gauntlet. “You can’t just send him on this suicide mission. He’s too helpful at my branch!” Phil argues, trying to keep things on a more business level and not the personal reasons he’s actually mad about.

“We’re sorry, sir. But as I said, there is no one we can spare to offer him assistance.” At the person’s words, Phil looks up at Inferno in thought. It’s clear his cogs are turning, resulting in him giving a devilish grin, before he looks back at the gauntlet.

“You might not be able to spare anyone, but I can. Look me up, I’m Phil Altiere. You’ll find I’m qualified to act as an assistant specialist. I’ll go on the mission with him.” Inferno is incredibly caught off guard at Phil’s offer, but knows better than to say anything about it with the call going on. There’s a silence as the two wait to see what the voice on the line says. Eventually, they finally respond.

“That will do.” The call immediately ends. Inferno is appalled and dumbfounded at Phil suddenly pushing himself into the mission.

“Phil! This mission is super dangerous, are you sure you want to do this?!” In response, the new partner lays his arm across Inferno’s shoulders.

“The fact it’s so dangerous is exactly why I’m joining. I can’t have you go in there on your own. We have our own couple missions to do together.” Phil lets go and begins to leave the simulator. “I’ll go tell BITT he’s in charge until I’m back.”

“Wait…” Inferno starts. “What did you mean ‘couple missions’?” He knows one of them involves Phil’s memories that might have to do with Bolypius, but can’t figure out the other one. Phil just smiles, winks at the specialist, and then the door closes behind him, leaving a confused Inferno blushing alone in the room.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So, headcanon about Phil that seems likely. Irish/Scottish on Mom's side, Italian on dad's side. Just because I've only known people with the name Altiere to be Italian. To be more specific, I could see that side being Sicilian, because he's such a Si-silly boy... anyway, gonna go, now.
> 
> I can also be found on twitter, tiktok, instagram: @inferniolus


	7. Chapter 7

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Phil's memory wipe was finally brought out in the open and have found that by Inferno recounting their previous time together, his memories aren't lost.   
> Inferno reveals what he's found about Bolypius and how it seems tied to his recent punishment, and potentially Phil's memory wipe. They spend an otherwise calm evening together, almost do a smoochie, then go their separate ways for the night.  
> The next day, Inferno gets a mission for a Mapper Glitch of Calamitous Inhabitant 5 on the highest difficulty that he was expected to do alone, but Phil joins in to make it less of a suicide mission.

Inferno and Phil thought they were going to have a slow day ahead of them, but that mission given from corporate threw everything for a loop. Before leaving the simulator, Inferno refreshes his memory on Calamitous Inhabitant 5. Despite what he told his superior, he’s aware that this game is from a franchise of horror, but it’s one of the couple games in the series that left those roots behind in favor of cooperative action gameplay. It’s been awhile since he’s played it, but he recalls more or less what happens and how it’s mostly centered on having good reaction times to things that happen.

With the idea of how his mission will go, Inferno finds Phil in the central area. He’s told BITT that the bot will be in charge while he’s gone and the manager is currently dealing with a curious Miko and Bergy.

“C’mon, Phil!” Miko begins with her usual excited demeanor. “You never go on missions! Give me all the deets!” Phil looks really annoyed at her probing questions, but his expression shifts to a more relieved one once he notices Inferno is there. The manager responds to his employee.

“You need to learn to stay out of my business. Report to BITT, and don’t even think of patrolling near the border to Dabney!” Phil asserts, before he and Inferno head out the door. Once in Inferno’s van, the specialist questions Phil’s demand of Miko not going near Dabney. “Because she’d just follow us, and I know if I tell her not to do something, she’ll just do it, anyway. Which means she’ll head in the opposite direction we’re going.” And with that, the two head off on their mission together. Along the way, Inferno comments how it’s been a long time since he’s gone on a mission like this with someone else. Even though the stakes are high, he’s glad he gets to have this moment with Phil.

The van is parked in front of the house where the glitch has taken hold. The couple goes on a brief rundown of what they remember about the game. As it turns out, they both remember quite a bit, but brace themselves for things to adapt along with them.

With their preparations complete, the duo head inside the house and find themselves in a marketplace in the desert. The temperature immediately gets to them, as Inferno, instead of having the top of his hair tied back like usual, ties all his hair into a ponytail to keep it off his neck while the two make their way to their destination.

“Honestly, this explains why the characters always looked so sweaty…” The specialist comments, fanning himself. He doesn’t vocalize it, worried it would mess with their luck, but their gauntlets haven’t had any adverse effects happen yet. He quietly hopes it can stay that way, but isn’t getting his hopes too high. During that thought, Phil is just staring as Inferno is trying to beat the heat. The specialist notices and gets self-conscious. “If you’re concerned or whatever, don’t be. There’s enough desert segments in the JRPGs I work in that I’ll be fine. Just gonna be a minute to adjust.” Phil simply keeps looking at Inferno with a dreamy expression as they continue their way through the zone, both ignoring the standoffish NPCs.

“You’re cute.” Phil blurts out, causing Inferno to immediately lose his cool and go more red in the face than the heat already made him.

“I… you… We are on a mission right now!” An embarrassed Inferno shouts out. He looks forward for a moment, before turning back to face Phil, still looking bothered. “You, too, by the way. And I hope you don’t get sunburned, since I seriously doubt you can tan.” Phil starts laughing at Inferno’s flustered response, which in turn makes Inferno smile back.

After some more walking through the market, the duo end up in the area where the main characters finally get their gear. At this point, they activate their gauntlets and find the functions have been limited, as they will only be able to use in-game items and weapons. Surprisingly, the red tether is retained, despite how much everything has been limited, so the two are grateful for at least that advantage. Inferno is visibly uncomfortable as he holds the realistic looking handgun starter weapon.

“…I’m way more of a melee or caster type…” The specialist groans to himself. He shrugs his feelings away, since it’s for the mission and there isn’t really any way around it.

Thankfully, due to the effects of the tether, the duo breezes through the beginning couple chapters. They almost forget they’re on the highest difficulty until shortly after the first cave section where they have to fight a boss using land mines and baiting it to go over the explosives. Over the course of the journey so far, both have kept their handguns, with Inferno leaning toward the sniper rifle and shotgun, and Phil leaning toward the machine gun and magnum. Inferno, laughing, comments on how Phil, with the magnum, looks vaguely similar to a character from the first entry in the Calamitous Inhabitant series, to which Phil takes as the compliment it was intended to be. The real challenge arises when they lose access to those weapons and are on a rail system. The two narrowly make their way through it, crediting the victory to the quiet synchrony the tether affords them.

As they enter the next chapter, the two are on a motorboat in a swamp, given some free time during a bit when a cutscene would be playing out. After the cutscene, they just have to go around the swamp looking for puzzle pieces, so they take this bit of time to chat.

“So, not that this is a safe place to talk about the mission that won’t be named…” Phil starts, driving the boat. “But I don’t know how far we can get with just the two of us.”

“I mean… we can get a solid start going. But yeah, I agree, we will need more help with it. The problem is finding people trustworthy enough to bring in.” Phil nods his head at Inferno’s statement. They continue, wondering if any of Phil’s techs could help, but the manager doesn’t seem too sure. Inferno restates how he hasn’t made friends with other specialists, but thinks he might know some people that could help, regardless. They keep being as vague as possible while talking about it, trying to make it sound more like they’re planning a game night, seeing as everything they’re saying is currently being recorded. The two find all the puzzle pieces and continue through the game, eventually coming to the second cave segment. It’s a lengthy section that involves pulling levers apart from one another and dealing with waves of enemies. Thankfully, they’re still holding their own very well, with only a couple moments in this encounter that come close to being too much. A winged boss, similar to an earlier fight commences and the two bring it down, and finally begin heading to the top of a staircase leading to the next area beyond a door they just managed to open.

“Okay, now I’m starting to feel like this is a lot…” Inferno says with a sigh. Phil smiles back to the man in assurance, before his face turns to shock.

“Inferno! Look out!” Phil yells, blasting his magnum at the enemy behind Inferno. The specialist looks back and sees the winged boss is still alive. “I guess we only stunned it!” Phil exclaims, weapon pointed at the flailing monstrosity.

“Well… heck…” Inferno looks at the monster and back to the door at the end of the staircase, noticing it’s slowly closing. “Let’s just make a run for it. We don’t have time for this!” Phil agrees with some hesitation and the two book it up the stairs. It’s hectic, as the monster keeps on them, stumbling its way up. With perfect convenience, the two slide their way under the door, leaving the enemy behind.

“That was scripted… wasn’t it…?” Phil questions, catching his breath.

“I’m pretty sure, yeah. Either way… it’s behind us now…” Inferno responds, also tired from the dash up the staircase.

The duo continues their progression through the Mapper Glitch. A section Inferno was worried about turns out to not be bad at all, since the enemies are sound-based and the couple is quieter than the player characters are in the game. They make their way through the caverns, push their way through the labs, and find their way to the boss fight in the ruins. This is the first time the main villain shows up and with a mind-controlled version of the main character’s partner from the first game. After the villain makes his dramatic exit, the fight to release the partner from her mind-control begins. It’s way more difficult, since she’s out for blood, but they’re just trying to get the device off of her. Both men take their fair share of kicks that send them flat on their backs, but are finally able to persevere through the battle and remove the device from the woman. The scene with her plays out and it’s pretty awkward, since she’s on script, but no one is talking to her. So she goes on talking at Inferno and Phil, as if they’re having the dialogue she has with the main character.

“Don’t you trust your partner?” The woman says looking directly into Inferno’s eyes. It takes him off guard, causing him to look over at Phil with a stunned expression, before heading to the elevator in the back room. The specialist is thinking about her words and the concept of being partners. Phil follows onto the elevator and they have a quiet trip down as Phil lets Inferno have his moment to himself. He knows that sometimes Inferno just needs time to his thoughts before he’s ready to talk about whatever happens to be on his mind.

The doors open, and the two have to sneak onto a ship that the main villain is on and is about to set sail. Since it’s just a cutscene, they basically walk aboard and wait for the gameplay to continue. As the ship is sailing, they head right into a storm with turbulent waters.

“Hey…” Inferno begins to ask Phil, as the manager is leaning against the nearby wall. The dark-haired man stands in front of him and looks very serious. “I know we’re partners on these missions, but like… are we… _partners_?” Phil crosses his arms at Inferno’s question, nodding his head.

“Yeah, I’d say so.” He answers with a slight smirk. Inferno slowly nods, still lost in thought.

“Okay, but to be clear, I’m talking about us being boyfriends. Exclusive. Going steady. Whatever people call it.” At Inferno’s excessive clarifications, Phil groans with a smile.

“Yeah, obviously. What has all of this been?” The manager questions, motioning between the two of them. Inferno, smiling, and just a little embarrassed, gets himself bothered.

“Well, I mean… yeah. It’s just I wanted to know for sure… and like…” Before Inferno can finish whatever stream of thought he had going on, the ship rocks in such a way that he’s pushed forward against Phil. He catches himself, but notices that they are now only inches away from each other’s faces. There’s a long stare into their eyes that is reminiscent of the same stare they gave each other the previous night. They both begin to move forward, ready to seal their overly confirmed status with A BIG OLE SMOOCHEROONIE. They close their eyes, both ready for this moment. Unfortunately, loud screams of approaching enemies interrupts them. They both sigh in frustration, before resuming their mission without a word on the topic. Breaking their way into the ship through the enemies ends up being easier than it should have been, as they’re both channeling their frustration from having their moment interrupted. However, once inside, things get a bit trickier, with lots of cramped spaces and waves of specific types of enemies that are solidly bullet sponges. Of course, the two persevere and continue about their mission.

Eventually they make their way to a large open area outside the ship where the main villain has deceived the woman who has worked with him this whole time. As the scene is playing out, Inferno groans about the upcoming section.

“Ugh, I forgot there’s a chase sequence here before we fight her…” The specialist stretches as the scene plays out. The scene goes on and the woman has begun vomiting a mass amount of tentacles that might not make sense, but when you’re enjoying fiction, you need to suspend your disbelief and just enjoy it, gosh dang it!

“So… should we maybe start running now?” Phil asks, getting nervous as the tentacle monstrosity is growing in size.

“We could…” Inferno says, popping his neck. “Get a head start by waiting at the invisible wall while this scene finishes.” And that’s exactly what they do, they wait for the scene to finish at the place where they’ll have to start running from, giving themselves a maybe two second head start. As they wait, Inferno takes a moment to playfully lean into Phil for a moment. In response, Phil pushes him away lightly as they both begin to laugh. Completely undermining the monstrous atrocities going on in the scene that’s playing out by shamelessly flirting with one another… sounds about right. The scene has now ended and they have to make a mad dash back into the ship while avoiding being attacked. The roughest is the segment where the monster tries to cut them off, forcing them to run back and forth. Barely dodging a smack down into the floor, they manage to make their way inside as the enemy is growing around the ship. They now have to navigate their way to higher ground, but there are still the regular enemies about. It’s a precarious time, as they navigate this labyrinthine ship, avoiding zombie-like enemies and a tentacled monstrosity that is hell-bent on ending their lives. They finally see the staircase that leads to safety, when Inferno gets grabbed through the ceiling by a rogue mass of tendrils. Phil grabs at Inferno, trying to pull him out, but the struggling specialist begins reaching for a weapon.

“Ma’am… we’re boyfriends now and it’s great… but you need to… take your fujoshi nonsense and heck out!” Inferno has thrown his shotgun to Phil, who shoots the ceiling where the tentacles are coming from. In response, Inferno is dropped and the appendages retreat. Barely giving himself a moment to catch his breath, Inferno grabs Phil by the hand, and heads up the stairs to make their way into the helm. Despite how things look outside the window, this room is the safest place currently. Knowing this, Inferno plops himself into the captain’s chair and catches his breath. “Thanks for that…”

“No problem. Glad it worked.” Phil responds while handing Inferno back his weapon. He turns back to look outside the window at their next boss fight. “So there’s some laser weapon we’re gonna get to beat that, right?” Inferno stands back up and leans against the nearby railing.

“Yeah. One of us will need to use it while the other fights off the small tentacle monster things that will show up around us.” With their recounting of the fight complete, they head out and find the giant laser gun. Phil ends up using it while Inferno keeps him safe using his shotgun. The laser needs time to recharge between blasts, so during that time Inferno tries sniping at it, while Phil puts his machine gun to use. The whole while, larger masses of tentacles try to slam down on them, but that’s not hard to dodge. After a lengthy amount of time, simply because of the large health pool on this difficulty, they succeed and progress their pursuit of the villain.

The couple takes the elevator that was behind the captain’s chair and head to the engine room for the final level. As ready as they are for the mission to be done, they take a very slow, methodical approach, knowing this area can easily end them. They run through every variation of the smaller types of enemies they’ve had over the course of the adventure, with said enemies barring their way with a large door. After the smallfry has been slain, they pull the levers that begin opening the doors and right at that time more enemies spawn, including the giant bugs that can instantly kill if they get close enough. These enemies need to be defeated before the doors are fully open, because once that happens, the large tanky enemies will show up, as well. The bugs provide the biggest difficulty, causing Inferno to run out of shotgun ammo. Phil’s magnum finishes them off just in time and the two now need to deal with the bullet sponge enemies. With some clever manipulations of their surroundings, and some nearby mines, the two defeat their adversaries and have a final walk before it’s time for the showdown against this game’s villain.

In the next room, they find their opponent. Immediately the two are gunning down this sunglass wearing at night villain. He’s monologuing, talking down on the concept of partners and is using some god complex language about how he’s going to usher in a new world free from what he considers filth. Phil lowers his gun, unimpressed, leaving Inferno as the only one with his weapon pointed at the enemy.

“Okay…” Phil starts as the cutscene is playing out. “Shoot your shot.” Inferno is caught off-guard at his partner’s request.

“You mean… right now?” Phil simply nods his head back to the longer-haired man. “Okay… uhh…” Inferno, unsure of himself, presses Phil against the nearby wall in a seductive manner, brushing the side of Phil’s face. “Hey, so uh… wanna lay on the floor and talk about our hopes and dreams?” Phil slaps his own face.

“I meant with the gun!” He points directly at the weapon in Inferno’s other hand. “Wait, that’s how you shoot your shot?” Inferno backs up and readies his aim, embarrassed with himself.

“Right, sorry, simple misunderstanding.” As the specialist considers taking the shot, the villain throws his sunglasses at the two. Remembering how this scene plays out, they both simply move over to the side avoiding an action cutscene sequence. They chuckle as the villain looks like he’s fighting air, but thankfully this just means he’s on script enough that he thinks he’s fighting the main characters. While that’s happening, the couple heads down to the arena where the actual battle takes place.

The villain jumps into the arena and now the fight has begun. There are a few ways to go about this battle, but the two decide to be direct. Phil immediately goes for the nearby rocket launcher. Normally, this enemy will dodge the rockets, so he needs to be distracted. Thankfully, Inferno is fully prepared to become a distraction. It’s dangerous if he’s not close enough, since the gun is an almost direct hit, but staying close enough will make the opponent try to physically attack the man. With each physical attack, Inferno simply jumps back slightly, since the game’s script only factors in ducking or moving to the side with these kinds of motions. Phil fires the rocket, it blows up on the enemy, and the two have to repeat this cycle a couple more times, since the health pool is so high on this difficulty. After that’s succeeded, the enemy retreats to a nearby plane, ending the battle, and beginning an action sequence based on reactions only. However, since these two are real people and don’t need to see what buttons to push, they just move organically through the scene, which proves to not be an even remote challenge, since the movements are slow enough to account for reacting to a button prompt showing up.

One thing in the sequence leads to another and suddenly the plane has crashed into a volcano, as one does in the Calamitous Inhabitant universe. The final sequence is upon them, and of course the temperature is a lot to deal with. Progressing through the volcano, the enemy has reappeared and mutated with the tentacle virus thing, making him a more intimidating figure than he was before. The duo knows there’s a weakpoint on his back, so they have to maneuver around the area to give themselves a chance to shoot at it. But for now, they have to run. They run across a bridge, but it crumbles, causing Phil to fall to the ground below. Inferno, on higher ground, tries to get a look at where they both have to go, but doesn’t get much of a chance, since the enemy effortlessly leaps across the ledge to pursue him. There aren’t that many options for Inferno other than to retreat, so he takes the one path he can, during which time, Phil is trying his best to shoot at the mutated man to get him away from Inferno. There comes a point where another bridge Inferno is running across collapses, but this time he barely grabs onto the ledge in time to save himself. The villain is still steadily approaching as Inferno struggles to climb up. After everything they’ve been through and this incredible heat from being inside a volcano, he’s having a hard time building up the energy to immediately lift himself up. Thankfully, Phil is able to nail a long-distance shot using his magnum, which distracts the opponent enough that it begins firing piercing tendrils at Phil from afar. With this opportunity in place, Inferno climbs back up and finds himself at a dead end. There’s a large pool of lava keeping him from getting to where Phil is, but in the way on Phil’s path is a giant boulder.

“Phil!” Inferno cries out to his partner. “You have to punch the boulder! It’s in the script, so you shouldn’t hurt yourself!” Phil reacts to this with an immediately perplexed expression, before realizing there aren’t that many other options. So the manager punches the absolute heck out of the boulder. Just as Inferno said, since it’s on script, it doesn’t actually hurt him to do this. Eventually the boulder gets toppled over into the lava pool, giving Inferno a platform to jump on and reach his partner. Now that they’re together, the two head to the final arena nearby. Once there, their opponent immediately leaps to the area and starts trying to attack them. However, they know how to distract their opponent. So while one has the villain’s attention, the other heads behind him to shoot the weakspot. Inferno only really has ammo left in his handgun, so he tries to be the distraction more often, since Phil is still pretty good on his machine gun’s ammo. The two play this game of cat and mouse with the villain long enough that the enemy collapses. A helicopter shows up to pick the two out of the volcano. Inside are two rocket launchers that they use to blast at the villain from afar, ending the fight for sure, and forcing the root of the glitch to appear. They take the glitch and the two are back inside of someone’s home. The mission was a success. It seemed like an easy time, but that’s only because it was the two of them and they had their tether synchrony. They’re both fully aware that if Inferno had gone on his own, like corporate intended, things would have been completely different. The two immediately hug each other in celebration of a successful co-op mission.

Once back to the Bailley branch, after turning in the glitch, Phil decides that BITT should close things up the rest of the day. They’re both exhausted, and there’s only a couple hours left in the work day, anyway. Inferno still has to write out his report to HQ about the mission, though.

“Hey, how about you write that out and then meet me at my place? You remember how to get there?” Phil asks his partner. Inferno is a bit confused about why Phil wouldn’t just wait, but agrees to the plan, anyway. At the confirmation, Phil hurriedly leaves the building. Does he just not want to use the work bathrooms or something? Or is he avoiding his own techs? That seems likely, since so far they haven’t run into anyone, and they would immediately pester Phil about the mission they both went on. With that thought in mind, Inferno writes his report. He writes out all the facts about how the glitch stayed on script more than he expected and doesn’t play up how crucial Phil’s assistance was. Not as a slight against his partner, but simply because he’s worried what corporate would try to do to Phil if they knew he was the only reason Inferno didn’t get killed today. Seeing as that seems to be corporates plans lately, anyway.

“Oh, Inferno!” Five says as he approaches the specialist at the counter. “You’re back! How’d the mission go?” Inferno perks his head up and notices the young specialist is on his own.

“Oh, hey Five. It was fine.” Inferno answers while finishing up his report. “Honestly, I was supposed to do it alone, but thanks to Phil’s help it went smoother than it honestly should have.” The specialist is still typing away, not entirely thinking about what he’s saying to the boy who is nodding along. “Plus we almost kissed…” Inferno trails off realizing he just said that out loud to one of Phil’s employees. He tries to recover from that, “…uhh… we almost kissed the dust! Ohh, that final fight was a rough time!” Inferno nervously laughs at his own cover up, but thankfully Five seems to buy it.

“Oh nerds, that sounds rough. And you two were in it for such a long time, too.” The boy comments. “Honestly, in all my time here, I haven’t really heard much about Phil doing missions. So that’s cool to know that he pulled through for you.” Inferno nods his head in response.

“Yeah, he’s a pretty great guy. He’s solidly a once-in-a-lifetime kind of person. Won’t meet anyone else like him.” Inferno says, dreamily thinking about his confirmed partner. The smile that goes across is face is noticed by the young tech, causing Inferno to want to end the conversation. “Anyway, I’m gonna call it a day. See you tomorrow?” Inferno hits send while posing his question. Five nods his head to confirm and the two head their separate ways, with Inferno on his way to Phil’s house.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I can be found on the twitter, tiktok, instagram @inferniolus


	8. Chapter 8

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The couple go through Calamitous Inhabitant 5 together, which proves to be a solid bonding device for them. It also proves to not be that difficult for the duo, thanks to their own individual skills and their synchrony from the tether.  
> Seeing as the mission took a hot minute, Phil calls it a day early, asking Inferno to come over once the specialist sends his report on the mission to HQ.

The specialist leaves the building, gets into his van, and starts driving to Phil’s home. He thinks he makes a couple wrong turns, but surprisingly went the right way. Thankfully he’s driving while there’s still a bit of light out, which makes things easier.

Once he gets to the house, he’s surprised to see that Phil’s van isn’t there. Regardless, he heads to the front door and knocks. No response. The specialist then checks through the windows and sees that there’s no sign of the man inside. Immediately Inferno assumes the worst. He figures the mission today was supposed to end him, but Phil made sure that didn’t happen. Did corporate go after him so soon? That wouldn’t be out of the question for them. And Phil definitely left for his house way before Inferno did, so there’s no way they’d pass each other. Before catastrophizing too hard, he decides to simply call the man. Before he presses the call button, Phil’s van turns the corner. Upon parking in his driveway, Inferno notices that the man looks nervous.

“Hey, sorry.” Phil gets out of his van. “I had to make a stop, but didn’t think it would take as long as it did. Come here.” Thankfully, it seems Inferno’s worst thoughts didn’t come true. He hopes it will stay that way. Phil leads Inferno to the passenger seat of the car, pulling out a box that was on the seat. “Open it.” The shorter-haired man says offering the box. Inferno takes it, and upon opening, he finds a small cake that says ‘Welcome back!’ on it. The specialist isn’t sure how to react. “I get that it’s a few days late, but I was just thinking… well, now that I remember us, I figured better late than never.” Inferno is speechless. He’s never had someone do something like this before. “It’s cookies and cream, so I hope you like it.” Phil looks like he’s nervously trying to gauge Inferno’s reaction

“You…” Inferno starts. “…You’re really the cutest thing ever.” He says, pulling Phil in for a hug with one arm, holding the cake with the other. “I honestly love it so much. Thank you.” The two share their embrace and then head inside. They have the cake after finishing the leftover spaghetti, at Inferno’s request. Phil made it clear he had no problem making something else, but the dark-haired man was pretty clear that he really liked the spaghetti and, as long as Phil was fine with it, wanted them to finish it together.

After gorging themselves on pasta and cake, the two sit together at the couch to watch a cop telenovela that Phil’s been into, lately. Phil puts his arm around Inferno, who leans against the man, resting his head on Phil’s shoulder. Phil is trying to summarize what’s gone on in the show, but Inferno is only half paying attention. He’s mostly enjoying being with the man in such a peaceful setting listening to his voice and feeling his warmth.

“And she just shouted out ‘ique haces besando ala lisiada! Then there was about 10 minutes of pure chaos.” Phil happily describes a scene that referenced another show he’d watched before. He checks in on a quiet Inferno. “Did you get all that?” Inferno nods his head.

“Yeah, I think so. I’m just wondering… is the serial killer supposed to be the most relatable one?” Phil groans a bit to himself in hesitation.

“Honestly… I never thought about it, since… she’s a serial killer.”

“Okay, that’s fair. But she went to those lengths because of what those other people did to her, right?” Phil gives confirmation to Inferno’s question. “Then yeah, like… I’m going to take the controversial stance that the murder is a lot,” Inferno continues with blatant sarcasm in his voice, since obviously the murder isn’t okay, “but she’s got some solid motivations. More than everyone else, except maybe that cop she’s got chemistry with.” That statement gets a chuckle out of Phil.

“See, it’s just funny you relate to her, because I always related more to the cop.” Phil says, slowly running his fingers through Inferno’s hair.

“Well, regardless of what the show says, then, I guess that makes the two of them canon if we’re them.” Inferno claims, rubbing Phil’s arm a little. There’s a silence as the two are watching the television together. “I just…” Inferno interrupts. “I’m just really glad we’re together. If I had to go through all that bad stuff to get here with you, then it was worth it.” In response to Inferno’s loving words, Phil pulls Inferno tighter and nuzzles against the top of his head.

“Yeah, same for me. I won’t let anyone get in our way, again.” The couple stays in their embrace, watching the show, and enjoying one another’s comfortable presence. Not so surprisingly, after the exhausting events of the day, they both fall asleep in each other’s arms.

A few hours have passed with Phil waking up to Inferno making noises in his sleep. It seems the specialist is having a nightmare.

“Hey, Inferno…” Phil tries to wake the man up with a shoulder squeeze, but in response Inferno just lets out an aggressive grunt. “Hey!” Phil tries again, sitting up and looking at his partner, who has a pained and angry expression. “Wake up.” Phil orders while lightly shaking the man. Inferno comes to, looking terrified while checking his surroundings. His breathing is erratic, even as he realizes he’s still in Phil’s home. “You’re okay. You’re still here.” Phil tries to assure the man, which does help Inferno to calm down enough that he can use his words.

“Sorry… I just…” Inferno is looking for the right words. “I think I might have made a huge mistake coming back to you the way I did.” Phil is taken aback at this sudden turn, but figures it has to do with the nightmare.

“What do you mean?” Inferno is looking down at nothing, then to the hands on his shoulder, and finally looks back up to Phil. Noticing these eye movements, Phil let’s go, thinking Inferno needs space.

“I just… I feel like it’s inevitable that HQ is going to do something bad to you. Especially now that you’ve saved my life in that mission we were on.” The specialist holds himself, visualizing whatever he saw in his nightmare while speaking. “And they already were watching you, even after wiping your memory, and they hate me, and who knows what they’ve done to either of us already, and that voice of yours was right.” Phil has a perplexed expression on his face, asking for clarification on what Inferno just said. Inferno explains how during the Order of Dahlia mission, he heard Phil talking in the basement. It was so strange hearing Phil talking about what’s happened to them, finally ending with Phil’s voice saying ‘next time we might not make it out alive’. “And I didn’t tell you that part before, because it mentioned your memory loss, which I thought would’ve been a weird time to bring it up…” Inferno explains.

“No, that I can understand.” Phil responds, trying to put his thoughts together.

“I’m just scared that my selfish choice of coming back is going to get you hurt.” Inferno sums up the entirety of what’s bothering him. Phil moves in a way where he looks like he’s going to give Inferno a hug, but decides against it, thinking the man still needs some space. The manager takes a moment to figure out what he wants to say, before posing a question.

“So, suppose they do come after me. Would you just let it happen?” Phil asks, clearly leading to something.

“No, of course not. I’d tear them apart and take down the company by force.” Inferno brutally, yet honestly, answers. It’s clear he’s not exaggerating. Phil shrugs his shoulders.

“That’s about as safe as someone can get, then. Not even including how we’re both talented and cautious people. So if anyone should be scared, it should be whoever it is that would try to get in our way.” Phil leaves his arms open for a hug, if his partner wants it. Inferno, feeling a bit more comfortable, slowly sidles his way into the embrace. The red-orange haired man rubs the dark-haired man’s head to help soothe him more. “We’ll keep each other safe. Even if something bad does happen, we’ll be able to deal with it.” At Phil’s words, Inferno breathes a sigh of relief, having been sufficiently calmed down.

“I guess we _are_ a bit of a power couple. Me with my horror experience…”

“And me… having to constantly deal with teenagers?” Phil reluctantly adds with a chuckle.

“Oh, well that’s the greatest horror of all.” Inferno comments, causing them both to laugh at the joke. They enjoy the moment together, when Inferno notices the time. It's definitely past 1am. “Oh wow, it’s that late already?” The two pull out of the hug and Inferno stands up, stretching out his back some. “I should really be back at my room by now. Sorry.” However, before Inferno can head for the door, Phil stands, blocking the way.

“Now, wait a second…” Phil starts, clearly something on his mind. “So… I was wondering… would you want to consider my house your house?” Inferno’s eyes widen in surprise at this request.

“You mean… you want me to move in with you?” Inferno asks for clarification. Phil rubs the back of his neck.

“Yeah, basically. I get you move around a lot, which… sucks, honestly. But we can consider this your Bailley home.” The specialist crosses his arms, thinking about the idea. He does like it a lot, but it bothers him how temporary it will be. Is there something he could do about that?

“What if… since corporate hates me, I try to get more permanently out of their hair and stay in Bailley, reporting to them like I have been?” Phil is surprised at this idea. “And that way, I’d just live with you and this wouldn’t only be my Bailley home, but my home.” They’re both thinking about this idea. It sounds possible, to them. The biggest obstacle would be corporate, but like Inferno said, they might like the idea of not having to see him again.

“That could also finally give you the answer of what you’ll keep doing around the place.” Inferno turns his head to the side in confusion, expecting Phil to explain himself. “You’ll be my assistant. Helping out me and the techs, like you have been. And those simulations you make can be considered tests the techs could take. Just for the sake of the paperwork.” Inferno nods his head at the idea.

“I like it. It balances out, too, since on rough missions, you’ll be my assistant.” Phil nods his head with a smile. “Wow… we’re really going to live together and be together, huh?” They stare dreamily into one another’s eyes. When they were younger, they were inseparable. However, due to their personal desires and things out of their control, they were forced in different directions. Now that they’ve grown and changed, they’ve come back and are just as inseparable as before. A bond between the two so strong that any who get in their way will be in big trouble.

“It’s fine if you’re still not ready…” Phil begins. “But… can I kiss you?” The manager reluctantly asks. Inferno, still smiling, nods his head slowly.

“Go for it. Just… don’t get your hopes too high.” He’s overthinking the gesture, again. “I’m not entirely sure how to go about…” The words get interrupted by Phil PLANTING THE BIG OLE SMOOCHEROONIE finally. A surge of calming tingles rush through their bodies as their heads empty out of anything that doesn’t have to do with them in this exact moment. The two are filled with such a calm happiness at how things between them have been, and they have such a powerful hope for the future. A future where they will get to stay together and accomplish everything they want.

After some time has passed that felt like both one second, but also an eternity, they back away from one another, holding hands and facing the other with a soft smile. Phil lets out a relaxed sigh.

“How about we head to bed?” Immediately after suggesting that, Phil’s eyes widen. “Oh, but we have to go pick up your stuff first.” It seems he forgot about that detail. Thankfully, Inferno lets him know that shouldn’t be a problem. Apparently, the specialist had enough emergency situations where he needed to head out quickly, that he built the habit of keeping his stuff in his van, so he heads there to bring out his suitcase.

“If things go well, I guess I’ll need to break this habit.” Inferno says with a smile. They both head to the bedroom. Setting his case down, Inferno gets a serious expression and points to Phil. “I expect no funny business, though. We sleep and be cute in bed, but nothing more. …At least not yet. Got it?” Phil simply laughs through his nose.

“Of course.” And with that, the two get ready for bed and precede to have no funny business. Just cute, happy business sleeping in one another’s arms.

The next morning, the two wake up feeling more refreshed than they’ve felt in a long time. After throwing some breakfast together, they head to work together. They waste no time in trying to contact HQ about making Inferno’s stay permanent. As the younger techs come in for the day, they can tell something is up with the two, as they’re both radiating positive energy and Phil, especially, is genuinely smiling. Something the kids aren’t used to seeing. Miko, Zahra, and Five approach the couple to see what’s going on.

“Is someone getting fired?” Zahra bluntly asks the manager.

“What? No, why would you think that?” Phil answers, looking through files in a computer for something relevant to Inferno’s move.

“Obviously something is up! You’re never this happy! …Did a new donut shop open?” Miko questions, very perplexed. In response, Phil first smiles while glancing at Inferno out of the corner of his eye, before turning back to his workers.

“All you need to know is I did some cool stuff last night.” He seems like he’s about to get the three on track for something, when Inferno pops up, snaps his fingers towards the techs, and adds to Phil’s words.

“By the way, feel free to call me ‘cool stuff’ from now on.” As Inferno laughs at his own comment, Phil immediately gets red in the face, turning to look at his partner.

“Inferno! My office! Now!” He angrily shouts out, trying to cover up how embarrassed he is. As the two head for Phil’s office, they can hear the three techs talking. Zahra and Five understand what’s going on, but Miko is taking a moment. Five breaks it down for her.

“So you know how Phil is basically the team dad?” Miko nods her head. “Well… looks like we’ve got two dads now.”

“Two dads?” Miko asks, watching the two older men head into the office. The cogs have turned in her head enough that she gets it. “Whaaaaaat!?” She shouts out as the door to the office closes. Phil locks it behind them.

“What are…?” Phil begins, before looking at the door, thinking how easy it apparently is for people to eavesdrop. He takes Inferno’s hand and moves them to the opposite end of the room. “What was that about?” He questions, holding his still red face in embarrassment. Inferno looks at the man before him and feels bad about what he did.

“Sorry, I honestly just thought it was funny.” The specialist grabs his partner’s shoulders and lowers his head so they can make eye contact. “I won’t do it again.” Phil smiles back as the redness fades away.

“Thank you. It’s not that I want to keep us a secret, it’s just… not like that.” Inferno nods his head to show he understands. “And we have so much to do. We’ve only just started working on making sure you can stay here.”

“And after that, we have so much we have to do together.” Inferno says with a smile.

“But at least once your situation is sorted out, we’ll have all the time we need to work on that.” Phil responds, also with a smile. They pull one another in for a brief, yet tender, hug and kiss. Giving each other the confidence and energy they need to deal with everything they’ve got ahead of them. As long as they have each other, nothing can really get in their way. They pull back from the embrace. Inferno shrugs his shoulders with a smile, ready to tackle all the objectives they have before them.

“Well… let’s see how things go.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Look at these U-hauls! Boyfriends and living together, now!
> 
> So that's it for this beginning part.  
> I've already started writing bits for the next part and have a rough story concept written out. I'm leaning toward just posting it once I have a good amount done, instead of my initial plan of waiting until the next season. But I guess we'll see!  
> All I will say about the next part is it's already pretty different, in the sense that I don't have to plant as many seeds or establish Inferno's character as much. Things will get dark, things will CAUSE EMOTIONS, and, of course, things will be pretty gay and cute.
> 
> If you've made it this far, thanks a bunch for reading my story!  
> Please comment on things you've liked about it, things you wished I went into more, etc. I can't guarantee I'll put anyone's requests into the next part or anything further, but I will be interested in seeing what any of y'all have to say with regards to my story.  
> See you at the next part!
> 
> I can also be found on twitter, tiktok, instagram: @inferniolus


End file.
